Muv Luv: DYRL -Valkyries-
by sasahara17
Summary: Two special operatives descend on Atsugi Base with the same mission: find and secure TSF technician Hibiki Tatsunami. Meanwhile, Eishi cadet Yuzuka Sendou meets the young boy in question and discovers he's more than he appears.
1. Valkyries Pt 1

Disclaimer - The Muv Luv and the Macross Franchises are the respective copyright of their creators, Kouki Uchiyama and Shouji Kawamori, and I do not own the characters, storyline or respective settings of either franchise in any shape or form. All other references to pop culture likewise belong to their respective copyright holders.

Special thanks to Wild_Goose_01, who again helped proofread my drafts and correct many errors to make this more enjoyable for everyone involved!

* * *

"_Achieve your mission with all your might. Despair not till your last breath. Make your death count." _

- Part of the creed of UN Special Task Force A-01 Valkyries Squadron

"_I don't believe in the no-win scenario__. I don't like to lose."_

- James T. Kirk (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn), motto of SMS's SVF-118 Mobius Squadron

* * *

"So you reached Japan just fine?"

Captain Yui Takamura, development head and commanding officer of Project Valkyrie, successor to the XFJ Plan, propped the phone against her ear with her shoulder while she happily prepared a mug of hot English breakfast tea at her desk. It was a cold autumn night outside her window in Dover Castle, and Yui really needed her special pick-me-up after having to weather though the daily insanity that came with being in charge of her merry band of misfits. This was the only bright spot after a full day of dealing with the combined antics of Argos Flight and the Cerberus Battalion, and she wanted to savor it for all that it was worth.

"Yes, Captain. Landed in Chofu Base just an hour ago." Her youngest subordinate replied after a slight lag, caused by the international call. "I still cannot believe that I made the entire trip in four hours from Dover with no issues."

"Hm, looks like Lowell wasn't exaggerating about those new engines. I hope your arrival was without problems?"

"I was able to arrive without drawing too much attention. Your uncle discretely expedited my paperwork, but I have to speak to some Japanese engineers regarding the implementation of the EML-99-2 after this, as agreed."

"I see." Yui made a mental note to thank her uncle the next time they spoke. Sneaking one of her pilots into the island nation unnoticed was both a difficult and risky exercise, but they had little choice in the matter considering the sensitive nature of the mission. It could have been outright impossible if not for her Uncle, and she was now very much in his debt for this favor.

"I'll probably be spending the entirety of today with the engineers, but if all goes well I can begin my search for Tatsunami tomorrow."

"Good. Maintain a low profile, I want to keep this quiet if I can-" Yui ordered, before adding as an afterthought, "-and keep an eye out of any Allegiance elements while you're there. The agent Manadal captured in Inverness broke from interrogation. He revealed that some survivors from the Yukon attack have fled to Japan."

"Survivors? You don't mean… _them?_"

"Unfortunately." Yui had been surprised there had been any survivors from the Yukon attack at all. These fanatics and terrorists were like cockroaches. Just when you'd thought they were done and dusted, they popped up again somewhere else to cause more trouble. "Be careful. If it's really the same group then they might still have some of the TSFs they stole from Blue Flag."

"I hope you are wrong, Captain. Fighting that Raptor will not be easy."

"I know, but sooner or later, it's going to pop up somewhere." Yui sighed. "Besides, if we can retrieve or destroy Kuze's stolen Raptor, the Americans will owe us one."

"I understand, ma'am."

"Take care, Revenant, and good luck."

"Understood, Captain." There was a click, and Nastassja Ivanova, the 'Revenant' of the 211th Zhar Battalion, ended the call. Yui set the phone down back in its cradle and reached for her cup, taking a small sip to test her hot tea. The warm liquid's soothing yet bitter feeling slid down her throat and into her chest, and Yui smiled with pure contentment. It was perfec-

"**DECULTURE SHOCK, MOTHERFUCKERS! **_**YA-HOO!**_**"**

It was about then that a certain Ilfriede von Feulner decided to do a low pass over the castle in her brand new VTF-0(2) Valkyrie, bellowing over the external speakers like a banshee the entire way. The resulting shockwave from the low flying fighter knocked Yui's glorious cup of tea all over her immaculate uniform and sent the surprised young woman tumbling onto her behind.

For a moment, silence and stillness reigned where Yui sat there stunned, unable to comprehend the fact her nice relaxing evening cup of tea had been completely ruined. Then Yui, and just about everyone else in the bloody castle caught off guard by the stunt for that matter, erupted into a single cry that pretty much summed up her life since she had first met the man named Yuuya Bridges.

"**GOD **_**DAMN**_** THESE VALKYRIE PILOTS!" **

* * *

**Muv Luv: Do You Remember Luv**

**-Valkyrie-**

**Part One**

* * *

Hand in the air. Ring, middle and index fingers together. Thumb and pinky outstretched into a V.

That was the shape of the hand that Hibiki Tatsunami held up to the clear blue sky. The young boy then turned it sideways and moved it across his body like the point of his fingers were moving forward. Twisting his torso, the hand began to move again in several corkscrews as he allowed it to descend.

Just as it reached his waist, he angled it back up and allowed it to rise back into the air until his arm was completely outstretched. Tatsunami did this in complete silence, so deep was his concentration it was as if he was in a trance.

"What a weirdo."

"That's not a very nice thing to say." Sendou Yuzuka frowned at her friend and fellow Eishi, Isumi Akira, as the two of them crouched behind a small bush to conceal their presence.

The pair of Eishi cadets were watching Tatsunami do his weird dance with his hands from afar. They had heard of this strange boy from some of their fellow trainees, and the pair had come here out of curiosity to see if the rumors were true. It was common knowledge on the base that Tatsunami would come out into the open grass field in his free time for the sole purpose of watching the large cargo planes and recon drones taking off and landing from the nearby runway.

Sometimes when sky was clear and blue, such as a day like this one, he would sometimes do this odd dance with his hands.

"Well, he is!" Akira pointed at the boy in the distance accusingly. "I mean, look at him! Who knows what's going though that head of his?"

"I'm sure he has his reasons," Yuzuka defended, unable to take her eyes off the boy in the distance. He had started moving his hand about again, this time tilting it left, then right, then back again while inverting it palm skyward and allowing it to drop.

"If he has his reasons, they're probably stupid," Akira huffed. "He spent months in a mental ward sprouting nonsense, remember?"

"I know," Yukaza said.

Tatsunami's story was quite famous among their training cohort. Six months ago, Tatsunami Hibiki had been drafted into the Imperial Japanese Army when that he had hit the age of fifteen. It had seemed normal at first. Tatsunami enlisted without complaint, with a smile even, and had quickly proved his worth under the Eishi training program. Then everything got weird. There had been an accident over Tokyo airspace where he'd crashed his Type-97 Fubuki right into the bay and was knocked unconscious. When he was eventually fished out of the water, Tatsunami, one of the most promising trainees the IJA had seen in a while, started spouting ridiculous fantasies.

"I bet he did it just to get out of being an Eishi pilot. He probably lost his nerve at the last moment," Akira theorized. That was the prevalent theory surrounding Tatsunami. However, now that Yuzuka was seeing him in person, she had come to a startling realization.

"I don't know about that. I think, I think that there's nothing he would want more than to be an Eishi," Yuzuka whispered softly. The arrangement of his fingers was meant to resemble an airplane with forward swept wings. Those movements were meant to be the plane, soaring gracefully through the air.

This boy wanted to fly.

"If that's the case, then he'd made a terrible mistake by doing what he did," Akira said sharply, feeling no pity for the apparent 'draft dodger'. "Stripped of his Eishi status, sent to a mental hospital and then having his military specialty changed to a mechanic… yeah, if he really wanted to be an Eishi, that was the wrong way to go about it."

Yuzuka could only nod at Akira's words and look on at the boy in pity. Her friend was right. There was no way anyone would let Tatsunami pilot a TSF now. No wonder he looked so sad when watching those planes taking off and landing.

"Lunch break's almost over. We'd better get back. We have a briefing for the cross training exercises tomorrow with the IRG and that's way more important than some crazy kid," Akira said.

"You're right. We should leave," Yuzuka agreed.

Akira shuffled backwards out of the bush, and Yuzuka was just about to join her when her last involuntary glance to Tatsunami stopped her cold.

Two cold brown eyes looking keener than a hawk's looked right at her. Tastsunami's arms hung limply to his side, face impassive as he regarded Yuzuka ,the same way a bird of prey would regard a fleeing rabbit. Tatsunami was a predator, and somehow he had known they were watching him the entire time.

"Go," he mouthed to her.

Yuzuka fled so fast, in her haste to obey Tatsunami's unspoken command, that she knocked over Akira, who let out a squeal of surprise.

* * *

Special Task Force A-01, better known as the UN's Valkyrie Squadron, were the arms and legs of Professor Kouzuki Yuuko. They were a Special Forces unit in every sense of the word, comprised of only the elite of the elite and sent on only the most dangerous of tasks. Their sole mission: to assist Professor Kouzuki in completing the Alternative IV plan and to secure victory over the BETA at any cost.

Second Lieutenant Suzumiya Akane was proud to call herself a member of this unit. They were a small, close knit squadron, each member possessing the utmost faith and respect in their skills and each other. Being a Valkyrie proved she was among the best, and she could see and feel her impact on the ongoing war. Akane wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

Her latest assignment though, quite frankly, did not make any sense whatsoever.

"I'm supposed to find this Private Tatsunami and scope him out?" Akane questioned, her eyes scanning the report of the boy in question. "Isumi –taii, I'm sorry to question your judgment, but are you sure about this guy? His dossier makes him look like a total loser."

"That was my reaction as well, Suzumiya-shōi," Captain Isumi Michiru said from behind her desk, which had stacks and stacks of forms and loose papers sewn across the normally orderly workplace. "However, Kouzuki's orders were very explicit. You are to find him in Atsugi Base and bring him to Yokohama."

"I don't see how an Eishi trainee washout would be of interest to the professor. Does she really have to send one of us to fetch this guy?"

"Yes. Unfortunately, I'm not at liberty to discuss it with you. Like I said, Kouzuki's instructions were very explicit," Isumi said, her face completely stressed with worry. "God damn this."

Akane felt a chill go down her back. "A-Are the budget numbers really that bad, Captain?"

"I wish I could tell you no," Isumi sighed morosely "But that would be a lie. If these reports are correct, we will have serious problem with repairing combat damage to our TSFs in the coming months. No point keeping it secret either since we'll all be feeling the cutbacks soon."

For the first time since their inception, the A-01 Valkyries would be operating with a budget. Although the original intent of their unit was a Special Forces unit with no financial restrictions so guarantee absolute success, the powers that be had decided to come down hard on them, and worse, Alternative IV in general. Citing their depleted numbers from attrition and the lack of progress towards the completion of Alternative IV, the UN council had decided to divert the funding that would normally be sent their way towards another program that was having much more success as of late; the research platform ironically named 'Project Valkyrie'.

"I really shouldn't fault Takamura for this since she's only been doing her job, but right now I really want to punch her in the face." Captain Isumi remarked.

"How does UN HQ expect us to do our duty if we don't have the support we need?" Akane said, her fists balled at her sides and shaking in anger. "Don't they know how much we've sacrificed?"

"We're all just numbers to them in the end, Akane," Isumi said morosely as she shook her head.

To say the resentment among the Valkyries towards the Project Valkyrie on this matter was fierce would be a gross understatement. The Valkyries had practically bled themselves dry for the sake of humanity, the list of their honored dead was a long and painful one that included many fallen friends and family, but now the very people they were protecting were 'honoring' their sacrifices by halving their funding and handing it over to some rear echelon research and development team, who were already receiving so much funding it was debatable if Takamura even needed what she was getting from A-01.

It did not help that Project Valkyrie's success was well earned. In the span of half a year, Captain Takamura Yui had turned a small program to modernize the Type-94 into a research powerhouse. A mass production line for the improved and field capable EML-99-2 was already in the works with the first batch of weapons slated to be issued to IJA units by December. Her relocation to Dover Base was rumored to have been to develop a TSF scale 'thermonuclear engine' that would have almost three times the power of existing turbofans with none the normal constraints of fossil fuels. The F-15E-OT Over Eagle, a beast of a machine that possessed the firepower two A-10s had seen a renaissance in interest in the F-15 platform around the globe, and the VTF series was a different matter altogether.

Takamura Yui was the woman who had promised to change the face of warfare, and she was making good on that promise in a very big way. The saddest part was that Takamura probably didn't even know the damage she was doing to the Valkyries, and might not have even been aware of their existence in the first place. Some called her a miracle worker. Others, like the Valkyries, called her the one who would sound death knell of Alternative IV… the only real way to win the war without abandoning Earth, a fact which all the Valkyries were now all very much aware of after Kouzuki had reluctantly informed them of the existence of the _other_ Alternative Plan.

"Well, there isn't much we can do but grin and bear it. I'm trying to somehow come up with something so that we can remain operational without compromising safety," Isumi stated honestly. The alternatives were too dire to even imagine. "I can say this for you though, your mission is of the greatest importance to the success of Kouzuki's efforts. Tatsunami might actually have something to do with Project Valkyrie's unexpected success."

Akane had to pause and process that for a moment. "What? This loser? Really?"

"It's on a need to know basis, and I can't tell you even though you're the one tasked with it. It's that important," Captain Isumi said plainly. "If Kouzuki's right, this boy may be more important to Alternative IV than even A-01 when it was at its full strength."

* * *

Nastassja Ivanova stood at perfect attention in Lieutenant Colonel Iwaya Eiji's office, as the man quietly took in his niece's agent. Although she wore the uniform of a UN soldier, it was merely a means for young girl to move around unnoticed.

"It seems like you were right about Tatsunami being another 'visitor'," Eiji said plainly."Makabe-kun confirmed that he is stationed at Atsugi Base as a TSF technician. We didn't notice Tatsunami at first because he wasn't an Eishi, so he flew under the radar, so to speak."

"I see. I will go to Atsugi then. Will Makabe be there?"

"Unfortunately, First Lieutenant Makabe is overseeing the permanent transfer of his training unit to Europe, so he won't be able to back you up."

Officially, Makabe Seijyurou would be moving to Dover to help establish a more permanent cross training program between the EU's elite and the IRG. Unofficially, he would be moving there with some of Japan's top Eishi to protect Project Valkyrie, and Japan's interests, from any foul play. There was of course the fact that Makabe was one of the few people alive that could reign in a certain maverick fighter pilot, but that reason would never be in any official record.

God forbid if Feulner ever got impatient enough that she decided to move to Japan instead.

"I'll arrange transport for you to travel to Atsugi Base."

"If it's all the same to you, Sir, I'd much rather prefer if I flew there myself."

"It's going to be very hard to hide you moving around in _that_, Ivanova," Eiji folded his hands in front of his face. "The VTF aside, do not forget as far as the world is concerned you are dead. Officially, you no longer exist. If the wrong people find out otherwise-"

"With all due respect, sir, I do not need to be reminded of that," Nastassja said emotionlessly. "But I would like my fighter close at hand in case I have need of it."

"Are you expecting a fight? I know Yui believes Allegiance has elements in Japan, but surely our military can deal with a few rogue terrorists?"

"Sir, if Allegiance really is in Japan, standing military or no I will not be left out of the fight. They started it, we at Project Valkyrie must finish it," Ivanova stated resolutely. "But before that, I am a pilot. I refuse to be without my wings."

Ivanova's eyes were cold, firm and resolute, so much so that Eiji was actually taken aback from the intensity of it. He had once told Yui that his greatest regret as a soldier was allowing children from her generation into battle. The Soviet Union obviously had no such reservations, and this girl was the tragic result.

This pretty much was embodied in Nastassja's call sign, 'Revenant': a vengeful ghost that had returned from beyond the grave to extract vengeance upon the living.

"Very well. If you're so instant about flying there on your own power you can go ahead." Eiji decided. "Just be aware of the risks involved."

Much to Eiji's surprise, Ivanova's lips twitched upwards, a sign that she was resisting the urge to smile. "Thank you, sir. If that's the case, I will prepare a flight plan as soon as possible. Will that be all?"

"That will be all, Captain Ivanova."

Ivanova gave him a snappy salute, then pivoted on the ball of her foot and left the room.

Eiji sat there thinking about the encounter for a brief moment.

What happened to the Zhar Battalion was a tragedy. Comprised almost entirely of young teenage conscripts from former Eastern Bloc nations, they had been forcefully pressed into service by an uncaring country. Every one of those children had heroically died to a man defending Kamchatka from the BETA. At least that was the official story.

After what she had survived, Nastassja should have become either a shell shocked wreck of a human being or someone who was consumed by nothing but vengeance. But if that small smile was any indication, Nastassja could avoid that dire fate.

He could see why Yui and 'Yuuya Bridges' had taken the girl in.

"I guess you were right Yui. Hope's not quite dead yet."

* * *

"_Tatakai tsuzukeru sora ni, oorora wa oritekuru~_

_uchi hishigareta yoru, omae wa hitoribotchi ja nai~_

_itsudatte…"_

Yuzuka's paused in mid step when she heard the voice singing from somewhere inside her Type-97 Fubuki's hangar. It was well after last roll call and she should have been back in her bunk getting ready for bed, but Yuzuka decided come back to the hangar bay have a talk with her crew chief to make sure her Fubuki would be in tip-top shape the following morning.

"Who's that?" Yukaza asked turning her head about to figure out where the singing was coming from.

"Oh that? That's Private Tatsunami." Her crew chief, a well-built man well into his forties whose preferred to be known by his nickname 'Pops', noted offhandedly. "Hibiki does that sometimes when we're doing over time. He's in your Fubuki's cockpit doing some diagnostics."

"_Tatta hitotsu no kotoba de, mirai wa kimaru no sa. _

_Oretachi no 'Beat-to' wa, kagayaku daiyamondo~"_

"Would you mind if I went to talk to him? I've never heard that song before," Yuzuka said, her curiosity getting the better of her. She was slightly intimidated by Tatsunami of course, the memory of him looking dead into her eyes still fresh, but this was something new.

Besides, she had better make sure he wasn't laying any nasty surprises for her tomorrow as revenge for her peeking in on him earlier that day.

"Suit yourself. I don't know what you see with that boy but you're the Eishi and it's your Fubuki," Pops shrugged, pointing to the access elevator. "Poor guy never gets any visitors except for MPs, and most of the other technicians won't even talk to him."

"_Hontou no sora he, hontou no sora he. Inochi kagayaku sora he…"_

"He doesn't get any visitors?" Yuzuka gaped in surprise, shock and horror on her features.

"He doesn't even have any friends," Pops explained, looking far, far older than he really was.

"That's terrible!" Yuzuka exclaimed. No friends? In a day and age like this, friends and comrades were all one had in this kind of life. How could anyone stand to be alone?

"I wish I could do more for the kid, I really do, but I can't relate to half the things he ways." Pops sighed, sadly. "Tatsunami operates on an entirely different wavelength from most of us. It's gotten to the point the poor kid's stopped caring about everything outside of this hangar and simply works his shift."

"We'll see about that!" Yuzuka stated, determination in her step as she stormed up to the elevator.

"_FLY AWAY-FLY AWAY~  
nobotte yukou!  
TRY AGAIN-TRY AGAIN~  
kinou ni te wo futte!  
FLY AWAY-FLY AWAY~  
shinjiru kagiri~  
TRY AGAIN-TRY AGAIN~  
ashita wo aiseru sa~"_

"Hey there!" Yuzuka greeted awkwardly, prompting the boy to stop singing.

It didn't take long to find Tatsunami, who was dressed in glaring orange coveralls with a mechanic's jockey cap sitting on his head. He was sitting comfortably on the seat of her Fubuki typing away at a notebook computer that was hooked up the TSF interface.

"Ah, you must be the pilot," He slowly looked up from what he was doing to her with a friendly smile. "Us gearheads don't really get visitors fro-it's _you!_" He practically jumped out of seat in surprise and recoiled from her. His eyes went straight to her bars and shrunk into pinpricks.

"You're an _officer?!_"

"Uh, hi?" Yuzuka said perplexed.

"You-you-you followed me? Oh, shit! Oh, Shit!" Tatsunami quickly shoved his laptop to one side and scrambled out of the Fubuki post haste. He then began bowing repeatedly to her. "Sorry, ma'am! I didn't mean to mouth off at you! Please forgive me!"

It took Yuzuka a moment to realize the poor guy was genuinely scared of her. In that moment, the humor of the situation caught up with her and Yuzuka started giggling. He? Scared of her? Just half a day ago he'd given her the fright of her life!

"Uh. I take it that this means you're not mad?" Tatsunami asked hopefully, as Yuzuka allowed the fit of humor to run its course.

"No, no, no! I was just coming up here to check on my Fubuki and I heard you singing. I decided to investigate," Yuzuka explained with a happy smile on her face. "I was actually worried about meeting you. You seemed so fierce just this afternoon."

Tatsunami rubbed the back of his neck abashedly. "Sorry. It's just that I've been getting so many peepers as of late. It's starting to get really old."

"Really?"

"Well everyone wants to take a look at the pilot washout who was stuck in the loony bin for a few months." Tatsunami grumbled and stuck his hands in his pockets. "Sorry, but you were the last person in a long line of people who've cut into my privacy and I was really not happy about that."

"Well doing that 'plane thing' out in the open wasn't very private." Yuzuka giggled at the thought. Tatsunami suddenly jerked involuntarily in surprise at her simple statement.

"You could tell it was a plane?"

"Well, if a plane had forward swept wings, yes. But I don't think any of those exist in real life outside of the few performance demonstrators and drones. Forward swept wings are too impractical for use in the actual air force bombers," Yuzuka said. "Besides, real life airplanes are not very useful against the BETA."

Except for that VTF thing Yuzuka had heard about. She was in training and wasn't really on the ball with the news, but apparently Captain Takamura Yui of the IRG had showcased some sort of transformable jet fighter that she claimed her test pilot had used to destroy BETA Laser formations. Although she was a rising star and pretty much their Japan's golden girl at this point, with the audio recording of Takamura's declaration of war hailed as one of the greatest motivational speeches ever made, not many people in Japan had actually seen this supposed miracle jet yet. Even photographs of it were scarce.

"Yeah, so I've been told," Tatsunami sighed, then straightening his back and giving her a formal salute. "Private Hibiki Tatsunami, pleased to meet your acquaintance, ma'am."

"Officer Cadet Sendou Yuzuka, the pleasure is mine, Tatsunami-san." Yuzuka returned his salute, noting that he had said his given name before his family name, as was the way the westerners did it.

"Please, just Hibiki," Hibiki said as they dropped their salutes. "I get tired of the constant formality everyone insists with around here, and you're the first person who hasn't chewed my ass for some small infringement of the dress code."

"I'm not sure I can do that in public since I am an Eishi of Japan, but I can call you Hibiki while we're in private like this, 'Hibiki'," Yuzuka said. "In exchange, you can call me Yuzuka."

"Cool!" Hibiki said, climbing back into the cockpit and sitting his computer back on his lap. "Well, I could give you a rundown of what's being happening to your Fubuki if you want."

"I actually want to know more about that song you were singing actually."

"The song? You mean '_Try Again_'?"

"Is that what it's called?" Yuzuka said in wonder. "I've never heard it before, and there aren't too many new songs like that in our language, especially ones as upbeat as that one."

Even since the invasion and sacking to the former Imperial Capital of Kyoto, and perhaps long before even that, Japan had been shifting further and further towards its current total war footing. Things like arts, literature and music had fallen to the wayside in the desperate push to defend their home. It had gotten to the point where the only pictures and music that had been composed in the last few years had been from government sponsored projects in attempts to boost nationalistic pride and morale among the armed forces.

What Hibiki had been singing was refreshing. It was a simple song that spoke of hope and possibility that existed for all without discrimination or prejudice, not like the cadences she had to sing when at morning runs or the pro-Japanese songs that had been provided by the government. And above all, he had been singing because he liked doing it, not because he was forced to.

"The song is '_Try Again_' by Fire Bomber. A rock band from… far away."

"Far away? I wasn't aware there were any rock bands outside Japan that sang in, well, Japanese. And most American bands are all singing pro-American songs, or at least the ones that I've been aware of," Yuzuku noted. Hibiki looked at her like she'd grown a second head, then burst out laughing. "Hey! What did I say now?"

"Sorry, but you're the first person who I've talked to around here who actually knows what a rock band is!" Hibiki replied happily.

"Well I lived with my father down in Hawaii for a few years. He had a few friends in the US Navy who would come over to the house once in a while. And you know how Americans are about their rock music. Father loved it."

"Cool. So where is your father now?"

Yuzuka averted her eyes and looked away. Hibiki stopped laughing.

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"It's okay. He was a doctor who was helping people throughout the battle of Kyoto. He did everything he could to save lives up until the very last moment. I hope to do him proud now that I'm training to be an Eishi," Yuzuka said with a strained smile. Hibiki didn't return it. "Anyway, before he passed away, he told me the Americans had a better appreciation of 'unconventional' arts than we did. Like rock and roll."

"You must hate my guts," Hibiki suddenly said.

"W-Where did that come from?" Yuzuka stuttered out from the sudden change. Hibiki looked absolutely forlorn and despondent, his shoulders drooping and eyes downcast.

Hadn't they just been talking about rock and roll?

"Well, everyone I've met so far has given me pity or has looked down on me for being a 'coward'." Hibiki admitted with melancholy. "I'm the draft dodger, right? The one who faked a mental sickness so he could get out of being a front line pilot? Scum of the ear-"

He was cut off when Yuzuka slapped him across the face.

"Don't make assumptions on your own so presumptuously!" Yuzuka said angrily. Hibiki was completely awestruck, a hand coming up to his face where she had slapped him. "I don't care what everyone else say. When I saw you earlier, saw someone who wanted more than anything else to fly. Whatever happened to strip you of your wings hurt you very much!"

Hibiki was silent for a moment as he tried to form the words as Yuzuka stood beside the open cockpit, hands on her hips as she puffed her cheeks angrily at him.

When he did, it was with a smile.

"You're different."

Yuzuka blinked. "Is that supposed to be compliment or an insult?"

"Compliment," Hibiki affirmed. "Every Tom, Dick and Harry I've met so far has been '_Yamato Damashii_' and '_Nippon, Banzai'_. You, you're different. I can talk to you." His smile grew so large, it was radiant.

At that moment Yuzuka realized just how hard Hibiki was having it. The sheer relief on his features about someone he could just talk to spoke volumes about how he had been adjusting to life here. In fact, it was this that caused her to serious question what exactly happened to him. 'Tom, Dick and Harry' was a phrase used by English speaking countries, something a Japanese person would not use in casual speech. His interest in rock music was also something very non-Japanese, as was his habit of introducing himself with his given name first.

"What really happened to you, Tatsunami-san? Why did you get admitted to the mental hospital and had your military specialty changed?" Yuzuka asked, now really looking at him for what he was.

Whatever he was, Hibiki Tatsunami was definitely _not_ Japanese, and that was exactly the problem.

"You won't believe me even if I told you."

"Try me." She challenged.

"…Maybe tomorrow." Hibiki said turning away from Yuzuka and turning his attention back to the laptop. "You have a big day ahead of you. From what I know, those IRG bastards are good. You'll have to rest up if you want to want to keep up with them in whatever they're going to throw at you, and I need to finish making sure your targeting computer is working properly."

"But you _will_ tell me, right?"

Hibiki turned to flash Yuzuka another smile.

"We'll see."

* * *

Hibiki's words were still turning in Yuzuka's head the following morning.

Yuzuka stood at parade, along with forty nine other members of her cohort. It was a chilly that November morning, and even through the additional clothing she was wearing, Yuzuka felt uncomfortably cold. Behind the Eishi trainees stood the other soldiers from the support specialities, such as maintenance and logistics, also on parade. As was tradition, they stood behind the Eishi to symbolically guard their back, just as they supported the Eishi from the rear in real combat.

Right next to her cohort were fifty cadets from the Imperial Japanese Army's sister service, the Imperial Royal Guards. Tasked with protecting the Shogunate and upholding the Samurai spirit of Japan, the IRG were considered to be the best of the best. Possessing logistical support, weaponry and training that the IJA could only dream of, Yuzuka couldn't help but feel a bit of envy.

At the podium, a smartly dressed, handsome man addressed the assembly. He was General Ikaruga Takasugu, and he was as charismatic and noble as leaders came.

"Ladies and Gentlemen. Today marks the first day of our four day inter-service exercises between the Eishi trainees from the Imperial Japanese Army and the Imperial Royal Guard." Ikaruga spoke clearly, with such charisma that it was impossible to look away. "Although we wear different uniforms and serve our nation differently, remember, the same blood, the same spirit runs through our veins. This exercise is meant to remind us of that.

"Our nation is under siege from foreign enemies. In the last three years alone, our motherland has been attacked on a scale never before seen in history. Even as we speak, our foes occupy our lands, make constant probing attacks against our defenses and seek to subvert and destroy everything we hold dear. It is this time, now more than ever, Japan must come together to repel this foreign enemy from our borders and show the world the true strength of our people."

Around her, Yuzuka could see nods of approval from cadets as they drank in Ikaruga's speech. It was in dark times like this that a nation under siege needed something to bind itself together. For the Japanese, this normally would be their traditions and warrior culture, something Ikaruga was appealing to.

"For many of you cadets in the Imperial Japanese Army, this will be the final event before your graduation and posting to the front lines. For you in the Imperial Royal Guards, this will just be another training exercise on your road to becoming true guardians of the Shogun. But make no mistake: regardless of the uniform that you wear, you are the future Eishi of Japan. You are the best of the best in all the world. You are tomorrow's warriors, the instruments of our victory over the enemy. Tomorrow's Samurai."

Yuzuka wondered just what Hibiki thought about all this, for he was listening to it too from somewhere behind her with the maintenance crews. Last night, Hibiki had made it clear what he thought about the overzealous nationalism that many of her comrades held. It was only because Yuzuka had grown up in Hawaii that she had a more open mind.

"This may be training, but fight with all your might. Show your comrades, show the world, and show yourself the inner strength you all possess. Remember one day we will push the enemy from our shores. Japan will rise from the ashes like a Phoenix to become the power it once was, and it will be you who will pave the way. Nippon, Banzai!"

The deafening cheer from the assembly of cadets could be heard for miles around.

So focused were the base personnel on Ikaruga's speech that no one noticed the arrival of a sleek white and blue fighter jet as it landed on the runway and taxied into a waiting aircraft hangar, nor did were they aware of a young redheaded girl in a UN uniform stepping past the security checkpoint of the base.

* * *

"You actually talked to that weirdo?" Akira balked as she Yuzuka suited up in for the day's exercises. It was mostly empty, mainly because everyone else in their squadron had already changed and Akira and Yuzuka were running a just little behind schedule.

It wasn't their fault. Their CO had pulled them aside after their briefing and quickly informed them that IRG Colonels had politely invited Yuzuka and Akira to a meeting tomorrow. They were at the top of their class, and it seemed that it had attracted someone's attention. Still, that short diversion had made them late enough that the two girls were rushing to catch up with the rest of their squadron.

"Yeah. He's actually a pretty okay guy," Yuzuka said as she pulled the inner layer of the fortified suit up and around her shoulders. "Did you know that he's a fan of American rock music?"

"Yankee stuff? Great ,now they're brainwashing us with their stupid rock music. As if the Yanks were bad enough for all the crap they've pulled so far."

"Americans aren't that bad."

"Yuzuka, I know you grew up around some of them and all, but with all the recent shit the Americans have pulled, you have to see how selfish they really are!" Akira rolled her eyes as she reached over for the metal components of her fortified suit.

Sadly, Akira's views were shared by most of the Japanese. It was hard to blame them though, for resentment wasn't exactly unfounded. The United States of America's foreign policy had always put the superpower's own interests before anyone else. Their actions in the BETA Invasion of Japan three years ago, and their actions since, had made many among the populace bitter against them and foreigners in general. The recent debacle of the 'Red Shift' incident, where Alaska was almost blown sky high with nuclear weapons, was simply the latest in a long line of public relations disasters.

It did not help Japanese perceptions that Takamura Yui, Japan's golden girl, was the one step in and solve the incident herself when she had no obligation to. Project Valkyrie had been in the process of relocating to Dover Base in England, an entire ocean away, but Yui still has sent her men back to Yukon handle the situation. While Takamura was in fact one of the world's foremost advocates for a unified front against the BETA, Japan's propaganda machine had sadly focused construed Yui's deeds a distinctly nationalistic slant, something even Yuzuka was able to see from a mile away.

"I'm sure you're right in the average American soldier being an 'okay person', but their leadership sucks and that's pretty much what counts." Akira finished, pressing the button on the back of her neck to get her suit to compress and become skin tight. "Anyway, back to Tatsunami. Rock music. Yeah, I can totally see that happening."

Yuzuka sighed as she thumped the button on her own suit. "Odd thing though. The rock music he was singing was entirely in Japanese."

"What?" Akira paused. "Since when does Japan have rock bands?"

"I know, right? It sounded really nice too. I tried getting it out of him but-"

"Ah, excuse me." An unfamiliar voice interrupted the pair from the door leading to the hangar. "This changing room five, yes?"

Yuzuka and Akria turned to face the newcomer. Much to their surprise, it was a short young girl about their age, maybe even younger. Her facial features were definitely non-Japanese, and her brown hair was worn in a short ponytail. But what was most surprising was what the girl was wearing.

"Is that a pilot suit?" Yuzuka asked curiously

What the stranger was wearing was decidedly not a standard issue fortified suit, or at least one that Yuzuka had seen before. It looked more like the G-Suits bomber pilots wore, except it was much bulkier around the chest area and thighs. It had UN markings on its shoulder pads, and an unfamiliar yellow and black logo with the letters 'SVF-118' was emblazoned over her left breast and the flag of the Czech Republic was worn proudly on her left shoulder. The stranger carried a large helmet under one arm, one that had a huge visor in the front and looked like it could be vacuum sealed from the external environment, and a travel bag bearing the UN logo in the other.

"Yes, this is pilot suit. This changing room five, yes?" The stranger said.

"Oh. Yes it is, Ma'am!" Akira quickly replied while saluting smartly and discretely pointing out to Yuzuka the bars on the stranger's shoulder. Yuzuka quickly snapped off a salute. The girl in front of them held the rank of a _Captain_ and was apparently a foreign officer.

"Ah. Many thanks. I am Captain Nastasha Latrova. I am UN army fighter pilot," The girl walked over to one of the benches near them and deposited her effects, picking out one of the unoccupied lockers for herself. "No need to salute. This is changing room, not corridor."

"Thank you, Ma'am!" Akira dropped her salute post haste, Yuzuka following soon after. "I am Cadet Isumi, and this is Cadet Sendou. It is an honor to meet you ma'am!"

"No familiarity. Did I not just say? Apologies, my Japanese not so good. Can speak English, yes?"

"English can eat shit," Akira mumbled under her breadth before catching herself. "Sorry ma'am, I'm not proficient in that language. Cadet Sendou may be though."

"Then we speak in Japanese. I do not wish to impose." Latrova said, rummaging around the inside of her travel bag, eventually she produced out a towel and a UN dress uniform.

"Pardon me if I am being presumptuous, ma'am. What beings you to Atsugi?" Yuzuka asked.

"Ah, that is classified," Captain Latrova started to disrobe, beginning by pulling down the zipper on her neck. It became apparent that despite the bulk she was wearing a jumpsuit of some kind, one that was an actually a very heavily modified fortified suit under some kind of sealed environment G-suit from the looks of it.

"I telling you, but then I have to kill you." She paused. "Sorry, joke. Is not as funny as when Yuuya did it."

Akira quietly leaned over to Yuzuka and whispered. "Oh no, not another weirdo. She's as bad as Tatsunami." Then she turned to the good Captain. "Apologies Captain, I and Sendou have to get going. We have exercises with the IRG to get to."

"Ah, do not let me keep you from your duties," Latrova replied, as she pulled off the top of her suit, revealing a sleeveless inner shirt underneath. Yuzuka and Akira quickly saluted one last time and then made to leave.

It was only because she was a second slower than Akira that Yuzuka heard it. From behind her, a soft wound drifted from the changing room she had just exited.

"_Oboete imasu ka, me to me ga atta toki wo~_

_Oboete imasu ka, te to te ga fureatta toki~ _

_Sore wa hajimete no, ai no tabidachi deshita…"_

Yuzuka paused in mid-step and turned around, wondering if she was hearing things right. That was Japanese, wasn't it? But didn't the Captain just say her Japanese wasn't that good?

"_I love you so…"_

"Yuzuka, hurry up or we're doing to be late!"

Yuzuka snapped to her senses. "Coming!"

Was that… singing?

* * *

"What do you mean you can't transfer him out?" Akane asked furiously, her palms slamming down on the desk of the officer before her. He may have outranked Akane, but she would be damned if she let that stop her from completing her mission!

"Tatsunami-nittohei is a crucial part of these exercises between the IRG and the IJA," Captain Yamato, CO of Tatsunami's unit, stated clearly and concisely. "These exercises are crucial for the training of our Eishi. Surely, even you in the UN Amy realize that."

"I understand. However, Private Tatsunami is but one soldier. Surely you can spare him?"

"Normally I would, Suzumiya-shōi. However, you are asking this on very short notice when there is a major exercise going on. Furthermore, you want this without even telling me just why you want him?" Yamato shook his head in disgust. "Don't make me laugh, Second Lieutenant."

In spite of his disrespect, there wasn't much Akane could do since Yamato was completely right. She'd shown up on his doorstep in the middle of an important exercise and was making unreasonable demands with seemingly no valid reason. Even with her UN mandate, getting what she wanted from him was going to be very difficult.

"Look, Second Lieutenant, I am not an unreasonable man," Yamato continued, fingers drumming on the printed UN mandate that she had given him. "You do have actual orders and I get that. However, it only specifies that I give you Tatsunami, not _where_ and _when_."

Akane brightened. "So does that mean-"

"We will discuss this again when exercise is over," Yamato conceded. "Like you said, Tatsunami is but a single soldier. My only issue is that you have not supplied a reason why I should release him to you right away while we have these exercises on. Once they are over, I will gladly assist you to the best of my ability."

Akane couldn't help but smile. The exercise was just four days. She could wait four days.

"Thank you, Sir!"

"I don't get why you want him of all people though," Yamato grumbled as he handed the orders back to Akane. "Private Tatsunami is a great mechanic, but his oddities are well known. What could you possibly want with him?"

"Oddities, Captain?" Akane frowned. She was aware Tatsunami was a Eishi wash out, but this was the first she was hearing about this. Perhaps this was why Kouzuki wanted him?

"Well, Second Lieutenant Suzumiya, about Tatsunami," Yamato shook his head . "Poor bastard thinks he's from outer space…"

* * *

So this was what War felt like.

"Geisha-9, Sendou, fall back, there are too many of them!"

"Roger!"

Yuzuka gripped the control yokes tightly as her Type-97 Fubiki backpedaled from the advancing BETA. Around her hundreds, if not thousands, of Grappler forms were storming up the fortified hill she and the remenants of her wing were defending. She was fighting back to back with Type-82 Zuikakus from the IRG, and despite being backed up against the wall they were making a magnificent showing.

"Shit, there's too many of them!" One of the IRG cadets screamed in terror.

In the back of her mind, Yuzuka remembered she was fighting in JIVES, and that those BETA weren't actually there. Even so, this was as real as it got. She felt sweat on her brow as she swept both her assault cannons across the advancing horde, keeping an eye on the rapidly descending ammo counters as she did so. She had been one of Geisha Squadron's Gun Sweepers today, a change from her usual position of Storm Vanguard that she had relinquished to another. They'd run headlong into a rampaging horde of Destroyer class and had been forced to break formation into a fighting retreat.

'Total victory' wasn't the objective here. In fact, the scenario had been explicitly designed so that the overwhelming numbers of the BETA would eventually overrun them. Today's exercise was meant to see how long they could hold a battle line against an insurmountable foe. All things considered Yuzuka felt that they were doing well so far.

That is until a nasty surprise was unveiled.

"This is Kurogane-4. I have visual on twelve, no, _thirteen_ Fort Class BETA advancing on Ronin Flight. They're engaged with Destroyer-class and are about to be flanked! "

"Geisha copies," Yuzuka's flight lead declared. "Okay people, Ronin needs help. Focus your fire on the Fort-class!" Yuzuka complied turning her Fubuki to face her targets and began raining down hell on the Fort-class with all cannons. 120mm depleted uranium tipped shells from every member of her flight smashed into the titanic beasts over and over with enough force to blow apart buildings and shatter tank armor like it was paper. Yet the BETA refused to fall.

"Pick your shots carefully!" Geisha-1 roared.

"We can't, they're too fast and too far away!" Yuzuka replied, just as her guns ran dry. Cursing, she quickly ejected the spent magazine and was in the middle of loading a fresh one when Ronin's final transmission came in.

"This is Ronin, they're about to overwhelm us! We-"

The panicked call was abruptly cut short as the Fort Class overran Ronin's position. Eighteen meter tall TSFs did not fare well against a sixty six meter tall alien monstrosity in close combat. Within seconds, all six surviving members of Ronin flight we brought down. Although the pilots and TSFs were in fact still alive and undamaged, to simulate death the Type-82 Zuikakus powered down.

And then, as one, the twelve Fort Class turned to face Yuzuka.

"Uh, oh." Yuzuka gulped.

* * *

Yuzuka sat in the darkness of her cockpit and gave a small sigh.

"Well, I'm done, I guess."

She had sacrificed herself in an attempt to buy time for the rest of Geisha to evacuate from their position and link up with the rest of the trainees at the third defensive line. She had ended up taking out nine of the Fort-class before a Destroyer-class, which had slipped her notice in the action, blindsided her and ended her run in half a second.

It was odd. In the heat of battle, she had forgotten it was just a simulation. To her, this was it: the final moments of her short life. Yuzuka was screaming and bellowing like a madwoman as she tried to starve off the inevitable, screaming in defiance of the inevitable and fighting tooth and nail like she could actually beat the odds and make it home alive.

To make her death mean something.

Then it was all over, and she was left staring blankly at her darkened cockpit, suddenly hit with the reminder that this was just a training simulation and she hadn't actually perished. Now came the tough part, waiting for the operation to end so she could get moving again.

Considering how well they were doing, it probably wasn't any time soon.

"This is going to be so boring." Yuzuka sighed.

"_Hey there, Yuzuka!"_

"H-Hibiki?" Yukuka jumped in her seat, and looked around in confusion. It was the odd mechanic's voice all right, although she couldn't see where it as coming from. Did he hack her radio? If he did, he could be in so much trouble!

"_If you're hearing this recording, then you've uh… died."_ Yuzuka sighed with relief. Oh, a recording. Still, that left the question as to what he had left for her in the cockpit.

"_Well, I'm sure you gave a good showing. And no, I'm not trying to kick you while you're down."_ Hibiki explained, his voice cheery and upbeat. _"You're probably stuck in a semi-powered down state until the exercise resets, so I've taken the liberty to put something in here that could keep you entertained."_

Yuzuka's face lit up like it was Christmas. And yes, she knew what Christmas was. "Oh, Hibiki, you shouldn't have!"

"_I hope my singing is not too bad. If it is, feel free to punch me later after hours. This one's 'Totsugeki Love Heart'. Enjoy."_

* * *

"_Let's Go! Tsukinukeyou ze, yume de mita yoake e~_

_Mada mada tooi kedo._

_Maybe dou ni ka naru no sa, ai ga areba itsu date~"_

"_Ore no uta wo kikeba . _

_Kantan na koto sa._

_Futatsu no 'Heart-to' wo 'Cross-su' saseru nante!"_

"_yozora wo kakeru 'Love Heart'!_

_moeru omoi wo nosete~_

_kanashimi to, nikushimi wo, uchiotoshite yuke!_

_omae no mune ni mo 'Love Heart'!_

_massugu uketomete, destiny~_

_nan-oku-kousen no kanata e mo, TOTSUGEKI LUV HEART!~"_

* * *

Akane stopped in mid stride as she saw something that caught her interest. The young Eishi had been walking around looking for Tatsunami when she had taken a wrong turn and gotten lost, eventually ending up far, far from the TSF hangar bays. It was then, in a hangar in the far corner of the base meant to store the air craft used by the Japanese Army, when she saw it.

It was a fighter jet of some sort, although not one that Akane had seen before. The angled lines of its silhouette, thrust vectoring engine nozzles and trapezoidal wing made it appear fast, stealthy and agile. It didn't seem to have any missiles or bombs, only a single dorsal mounted gunpod. Painted in a blue and white camo scheme, it stood out amongst the grey of the Hanger interior.

"What's this?" She asked one of the nearby technicians who was working on a C-130 Hercules transport plane nearby.

"Oh this? It's some weird machine that came in with that UN girl. Some kind of fighter jet." He replied. "I was hoping you'd tell me since I've been doing this job for twenty years and never seen anything like it. Wasn't she with you? You're both UN Army right?"

"No, I don't know anything about this." Akane frowned as she began to pace around the fighter, taking in the machine from every angle.

This bothered her. She wasn't aware that there were other UN Army personnel visiting Atsugi, at least one possessing such a unique fighter. Not to mention she was a member of the A-01 Valkyries and would probably be privy to more information than someone her rank would normally have. There was also the fact that jet planes weren't very effective against the BETA due to the Laser-class antiaircraft defense, so something like this would be completely impractical.

But there was also something familiar about it, something in the back of Akane's mind warning her that this strange machine was very important and could jeopardize her mission. Regrettably she couldn't place it no matter how much she racked her mind.

"I'm not much of an airplane person." Akane said, frustrated at her inability to put the pieces together.

"Well, I was actually supposed to throw a drape over it. The owner didn't want any gawkers," The technician admitted with a shrug. "Its camo could make it hard to see in the clouds, but down here it sticks out like a sore thumb."

"So why didn't you?"

"Haven't gotten around to it." He said jerking a thumb at the C-130 he'd been working on.

Akane, with the technician in tow, continued to pace about the strange jet in awe, curiosity getting the better of them. It was clearly factory built, the nuts and bolts too professionally done to have been anything else. Credence to the theory was added when she noticed the 'Boening/Stonewell' emblem on the side of the fuselage, although the markings on the engine which said 'Bellcom R.I. Engines: SW/BC-2001-TNE' did raise more questions than answers.

"I don't recall Boening making something like this." Akane said, her feeling of unease growing stronger with each discovery.

"You and me both kid-" The technician paused, his eyes widening "Wait a sec. This… This is from an F-15!" He rushed over to the dorsal part on the engine nacelle, is eyes wide with disbelief.

"Someone's taken a torch to it and the modification has been done very well but, there's no mistake: this is the leg of an Eagle right here!" He said, running and hand down the side.

"I thought you maintained C-130s, not TSFs," Akane said. "Furthermore, the Eagle is an American machine."

"I used to work on TSFs, the Type-77 Gekishin and the Type-89 Kagerou, to be exact," The technician explained, poking his head about the machine with renewed interest. "Eagles are basically the bread and butter of the UN Army worldwide, but I'd never thought I'd see parts of it in a fighter je-"

He stopped talking and stared at another part of the freighter, his mouth opening visibly. Akane followed his gaze as well and was taken aback from what she was seeing. On the fighter's undercarriage, hidden right between the two engine nacelles, retracted into its own partially concealed compartment, was something she never thought she'd ever see on an air plane.

"Is that a hand from a TSF?" Akane asked, already knowing the answer.

The technician nodded. "Yes it is. Two hands in fact. Not sure what model though, because it's not one familiar to me." He walked over to the component and crouched down to inspect it better. "There's a markings here which says it's from an F-18E."

And so they continued checking the fighter, occasionally finding a strange unidentified component of interest somewhere on it that they would lean in to inspect in closer detail. Despite the professional nature of its construction, the entire machine had been built from parts of parts of different TSFs and other vehicles, from the mighty F-15E to the humble B-1B Lancer bomber.

Even if it was a prototype developmental machine, as indicated by the marking 'Mark II', it was still a Frankenstein machine of epic proportions.

"And now we have the butchered head from a Euro Fightas Typhoon of all things." Akane grumbled climbing out from under the fighter where she had found it. "Who in their right minds builds a fighter jet out of TSF parts? It's not as if an airplane needs hands." Now those alarm bells were really ringing. Something about all this was terribly wrong, and it wasn't just this weird machine before her.

"Perhaps you should ask her," The technician said from the fuselage. "The print around the cockpit says it belongs to a 'CAPT N. IVANOVA'."

"Never heard of her."

"Oh hey! I think I know which unit the Captain it belongs to come from!" The technician said, waving Akane over. The redhead walked up to him and looked at where he was pointing, only for her heart to skip a beat. She admonished herself for not noticing the three letters, painted proudly in red on the side of the fighter, that pretty much told her everything she needed to know about it.

'X.F.J.'. Experimental Fighter, Japan. Project Valkyrie. The bane of Alternative IV's existence.

Suddenly all these pieces fell into place. This was a VTF-0(2), the transforming fighter jet Takamura's people were using. The 'Valkyrie'. The implications of this being here were not good, not when Takamura had apparently sent a Captain to carry out her will.

"It figures this thing belongs to one of Takamura's people. Heaven knows the crazy things she comes up with." The technician laughed. "No wonder it has TSF parts, this must be that Variable Tactical Fighter I heard she had her man Bridges use to ice those Lasers down in Kamchatka. I gotta tell the boys about this!"

Akane knew her mission had just gotten a whole lot more complicated.

* * *

As agreed, Yuzuka dropped by the Hanger after final roll call. The smart, responsible thing to do would have been to go back to her room and rest up since the exercises were hardly over yet, but Hibiki was just too much of a mystery for her to ignore. She also felt obligated to let him know how nice it was that he'd gone out of his way to record those songs to try and cheer her up whenever she'd been defeated in the exercises.

As with the previous night, Hibiki was sitting in her cockpit module, typing away at his computer while she lounged around on the edge, watching him do his work as they talked.

"General Ikaruga just rubs me the wrong way," Hibiki confided in her. As she had expected, Hibiki was not amused by the speech at all, not in the very least. "That speech has some serious implications, you know."

"How so?" Yuzuka asked, wondering just what his rationale was. It was a great speech, and everyone she'd talked to liked it, but unlike her classmates who would be offended by Hibiki's blunt condemnation of Ikaruga's stirring speech, Yuzuka too felt a bit unsettled by it as well. Although for the life of her she couldn't figure out why.

"Foreign enemies, that's the term he used," Hibiki growled. "Not BETA, not aliens, '_foreign enemies_'. That, Yuzuka, is a _very_ dangerous term when presented in the way it was."

Yuzuka caught on almost instantly.

"You think he was trying to incite the cadets against the Americans?"

"If it were the Americans alone, I wouldn't worry so much," Hibiki explained darkly, his brow furrowed in thought. "He deliberately left the term vague so that each cadet would substitute whatever they thought was a foreign enemy into his speech. For some, it's the BETA."

"And for others, it could be the foreign powers in general," Yuzuka nodded in understanding at the danger at hand. Without properly giving any definition of the term, Ikaruga had allowed his listeners to choose what his words meant. In a broad definition of 'foreign', even the UN army would be viewed as 'the enemy' who sought to destroy Japan's autonomy.

This speech was practically engineered to cause a rift between Japan and the outside world.

"Ikaruga doesn't seem as straightforward as he tries to paint himself. He reminds me of another politician once knew. I'd only trust him as far as I could throw him. " Hibiki affirmed gravely. Yuzuka had to sadly agree with him there, as much as her loyalty to Japan told her he was speaking rubbish. "Okay, enough talk about these things. Let's talk about your exercise."

"Okay," Yuzuka agreed happy to move away from such a dreary subject.

"I saw they gave you a Kobayashi Maru." Hibiki rolled his eyes in annoyance, his fingers still typing away as he did so. "What a drag. I hate those things."

"A Kobayashi what?" The named sounded Japanese, but Yuzuka couldn't place it anywhere.

"The Kobayashi Maru was an infamous training scenario in a fictional sci-fi TV show. It was specifically designed to be unwinnable by the trainee," Hibiki explained. "No matter how good the trainee was, the scenario would always adjust itself until they lost."

"You don't sound like you approve," Yuzuka said, wondering what his objections were this time. Tests like this emulated real life scenarios that happened all the time around the world. The BETA were relentless enemies, and it was a hard fact of reality that everyone was just a pawn on the larger chessboard. Tests like the one they were discussing served to remind them of that. Any objectives that were given were just window dressing for the true lesson that was to be imparted.

'_Make your death count'_. Such was the lesson that every Eishi carried with them into battle, the knowledge their next sortie might very well be their last.

"I know why they give them out, but I don't like the idea on principle," Hibiki conceded. "Like the hero of said TV show, I don't believe in no-win scenarios."

"Really? Why do you say that?" Yuzuka leaned in curiously, wondering how he would explain his differing worldview this time.

"Yeah, you may fail. Yeah, sometimes you lose. But that's life. If you think that winning is impossible in the first place then you've already lost. Sometimes, when defeat seems all but certain, there is a way to take total victory instead that's sitting just right at your feet. You just have to look."

"But you've got to sacrifice things you value to get what you want." Yuzuka countered.

"That all depends on what you sacrifice and what you define as winning," Hibiki laughed. "For me, I believe wholeheartedly that there is always a way out. A way to have your cake and eat it."

And so they bantered on, discussing their differing worldviews and beliefs regarding this one point. Hibiki's boundless optimism and the belief that 'impossible' was just a word amazed her. Some might have called him naïve, but she found that part of him to be very endearing, especially in the face of all the rhetoric she had been hearing as of late.

Strangely, his never say die attitude reminded Yuzuka of another person she'd heard recently. Takamura Yui's now legendary speech at the inauguration of Project Valkyrie echoed many of the same sentiments Hibiki was espousing, so much so the similarities between his outlook and Takamura's rhetoric was scary. Even so, she continued to play the devil's advocate, curious if all this was just talk or if he truly had something to back this up.

"The true purpose of the Kobayashi Maru was to test a person's character. 'How we deal with death and failure is as important as how we deal with life and success', that was the real reason for the test." Hibiki said. "In the movie, only one person ever passed it."

"So they presented the trainee with an unwinnable situation to see how they would react," Yuzuka finished, understanding the theory and reasoning behind it.

"You acquitted yourself pretty well actually." Hibiki grinned. He turned the computer screen to face her, and much to Yuzuka's surprise it was playing a muted video recording of the internal camera feed of her battle that day. "You're one of those 'Go not quietly into the night' people, huh?"

"Hibiki, stop! This is embarrassing!" Yuzuka squawked. Much to her embarrassment, she really did look like a madwoman, from that recording. Shaking his head with a grin, Hibiki complied nonetheless.

"No, I'm serious. When faced with certain death, you did your duty up right until the very end, and bought your teammates a full half hour to regroup. You even made the BETA pay for it dearly, even with low ammo and prior battle damage." He gave a nod of approval. "You figured out a way to win; for a given definition of 'win' anyway."

"And how would you have dealt with it, Mister 'I want my Cake'?" Yuzuka challenged.

His answer flat out surprised her.

"I'd have cheated once it became apparent the game was rigged." Hibiki supplied.

"What." Yuzka responded. "You cheat? That's your solution?"

"If the rules aren't in your favor, you change the game." Hibiki answered with complete honesty. "Jim Kirk, the hero, took the test three times. He failed twice. On the third try, he got fed up and reprogrammed the simulation so he could win."

Yuzuka palmed her face and sighed. Of all the crazy things to say, this had to be the first truly mad thing she'd heard come out of his mouth. "You can't cheat in real life, Hibiki."

"It's not cheating in real life, Yuzuka. It's called thinking outside the box," Hibiki said seriously. "What if you appealed to the Americans for help? A few extra F-15Es from Guam would have seriously changed things."

"We would never appeal to the Americans for help, you know that!"

"Hence what I mean by changing the game. That was just an example," Hibiki noted before supplying another one, rewinding the recording and pointing to the mini-map to emphasize his point. "A squadron of Orbital Divers dropping in behind the BETA could have neutralized the Lasers while they were preoccupied with suppressing Hattori Squadron an hour into the exercise. This would have saved Hattori and removed a major threat from the battlefield. Your simulation didn't even factor in the Japanese Navy who likely have battleships parked off the coast. I'd also recommend rigging that little farming village you fell back across the third defensive line with mines..."

"Alright, alright, I get the point," Yuzuka conceded. "But that's just the simulation. What if there's something different, or on a larger scale? How do you plan to cheat then?"

"Well, I know people who've gotten out of worse situations than the one we're in right now," Hibiki said, before realizing what he'd just said and losing his high spirits. "Well, people in my 'dreams' in any rate. Whole damn planet gets blown to hell and they still bounce back…"

Yuzuka's eyes winded. This was it. It had completely slipped her mind the entire time she had been talking to Hibiki to ask him what got him kicked out of the Eishi program. "Your 'dreams', is that why you were removed from the Eishi program?"

"Right in one," Hibiki sighed. "The shrinks have been trying to convince me I have around fifteen years' worth of phony memories from one bump in the head."

"It doesn't sound like they succeeded."

"Nope. They needed the manpower, so once it was established that I wasn't joking about my 'fantasy', they decided to pull me out of the Eishi program and put me to use somewhere else instead," Hibiki grumbled, a dark look crossing his eyes.

"I'm sorry." Yuzuka wondered if she should continue the line of questioning now that Hibiki looked like this. Eventually she decided against it. She had only just met him yesterday, and this was obviously a more sensitive topic than she had expected. Yuzuka decided to leave it be for now. "By way, I met another person who was singing today a song that I've never heard before."

"Really?" The dark look left Hibiki's face at the mention of a new song, and Yuzka was sure she had made the right choice.

"A Captain from the UN Army. She was really young too, like, our age or younger. It was Japanese too, which is weird because she looked like she was Eastern European," Yuzuka explained brightly. "I was hoping since you were the song expert you'd tell me if you'd hear it before."

"I'm hardly a song expert, but I'll do my best. So what was she singing? Do you remember any of it?"

"It was some ballad. How'd it go?"

Yuzka tired remembering the song, and strangely she found that recollection came easy. Much like the other songs Hibiki had sung, this one was new and upbeat. Unlike Hibiki's songs, this one seemed to have such gravity to its words a single hearing from that short words left them engraved in Yuzka's memory. And so, she began to sing.

"_Oboete imasu ka, me to me ga atta toki wo~_

_Oboete imasu ka, te to te ga fureatta toki~ _

_Sore wa hajimete no, ai no tabidachi deshita…"_

Hibiki had frozen still as a statue his fingers hovering just over the keyboard, his eyes wide with shock. Paying him no mind, Yuzuka finished the last line with final four English words she had heard.

"_I Love You So…"_

"'_Do You Remember Love'_, Lynn Minmei." Hibiki identified the piece in a dead voice.

"So you've heard of it? That's great! Can you tell me more about it?" Yuzuka chirped happily. But when she noticed her friend hadn't responded, she looked at him and saw he had gone pale as a ghost. "Hibiki? Are you okay? Are you listening to me, Hibiki?"

"Do You Remember Love…? Do you Remember-Yuzuka, who did you hear this from?" Hibiki suddenly sprang up from the seat and roughly seized Yuzuka by her shoulders, his notebook clattering to the floor in the sudden movement. Yuzka looked into his eyes and saw desperation and madness. Her gut clenched in fear.

Just what had she unleashed in her new friend?

"Yuzuka, Tell me! I need to know!"

"It-It was a UN Army officer. A Captain!" Yuzuka was initially too startled to move, but when she felt Hibiki's grip begin to painfully tighten around her shoulders he fought to get free.

She couldn't. He was too strong! Where did this strength in his small frame come from?

"Where can I find her? Yuzuka, this is important!" Hibiki continued, his voice quivering and deranged like a madman. "That song! That song is Do You Remember-"

"Hibiki stop! You're hurting me!" Yuzuka exclaimed.

As if coming to his senses, Hibiki abruptly let go of her and they both tumbled back in shock, with Yuzuka landing on her behind. Yuzuka massaged her shoulders, the after effects of Hibiki's outbursts still smarting. When she gathered the courage, she picked herself up and peered into the open cockpit module of her Fubuki.

Hibiki was still there, except he was now sitting with his back against the side of the cockpit with his knees drawn up to himself and his head buried between them. He was rocking quietly to himself.

"I'm sorry. D-Don't come near. I lost control of myself. Please," He said in a small voice. "Sick an MP on me, court martial me, but don't come near. I'm sorry."

Yuzuka could have left. She should have. He'd just assaulted a superior officer without provocation. By all rights Yuzuka should have left the hangar and gone straight to the nearest MP she could find.

But she didn't.

Climbing into the module, Yuzuka sat herself down right next to him mirroring his sitting position, shoulder to shoulder. "I'll let you off the hook if you tell me why you reacted like that." She said quietly.

At first, it didn't look like Hibiki was going to answer. But eventually, he spoke.

"That song was the first real proof I've had since I've come here that I'm not crazy"

He managed to get himself back under control, looking up and turning to face her as he did. Yuzuka met his eyes, and saw he was completely serious.

"I think it's about time that you told me what happened to you, Hibiki."

* * *

"Six months ago in May, I was involved in an accident. When I woke up, I had become mentally unsound with fantastical delusions. That's what the doctors will tell you." Hibiki said, looking up at the ceiling. No, from the way he was staring Hibiki was looking up at something beyond the ceiling, and it was just in the way. "But I know who I am, and it's not the person that everyone here wants me to be."

"And who are you, Hibiki?" Yuzuka asked, wondering just how crazy his reply could be.

"My name is Hibiki Tatsunami. I am fifteen years old. I was born on the 25th New Macross Long Distance Colony Fleet 'Macross Frontier'. I had two loving parents Daisuke and Mayuri Tatsunami. I lost them both in the Vajra War due to a conspiracy from our sister colony, Macross Galaxy, to seize control of the Vajra's Fold Network. It was their deaths that moved me to become a soldier just under a year ago," Hibiki replied. "I lied on my enlistment papers to get past the minimum age of enlistment. As far as I can tell, none of my co-workers have figured it out yet."

"Macross Frontier? Fold Network? Long Distance Colony Fleet?" Yuzuka's mind whirred. "You're talking about outer space." Hibiki nodded, causing Yuzuka to shake her head in denial.

So this was why they called him crazy.

"We went up there after a war with the Zentradi, an alien race of Giants, devastated the Earth. Billions died from the orbital bombardment and the planet was made almost inhospitable. We only won by the skin of our teeth."

She could see where this was going. Earth devastated, long distance colony fleet… it sounded like his people were sending colony fleets to space like a last act of desperation. Abandoning Earth. Never. Yuzuka knew mankind rather would die fighting before they'd allow the BETA to take their planet.

"So you abandoned Earth?"

At this, Hbiki turned and gave her a goofy smile.

"Hardly. Earth is the capital of New United Nations Space. We have colony worlds throughout the entire galaxy from the rim to the galactic core. As for Earth, it took years for terraforming to repair the biosphere, but it's now the shining gem it used to be. Better even, because we reversed air pollution to pre-industrial revolution levels." Hibiki looked back up, up at the heavens that lay beyond the ceiling, stretching an arm out as he did so. "We went to the stars because we could. When we made peace with the Zentradi we realized Earth was just too small for us. We had to go further. The first _Megaroads_ were acts of desperations for sure, but by the time Macross Frontier was launched, we were simply going out there because we could."

There were so many things she could have asked that point. For instance, didn't he say the Zentraedi were their enemies? Ones that had almost wiped them out, from orbit no less, and killed billions? She couldn't even conceive of coexistence with the BETA. It was even in their name: 'Beings of the Extra-Terrestrial Origin which is Adversary of the Human Race'. Co-existence with aliens was impossible.

Or this 'New United Nations', a civilisation he said spanned the stars. After having almost been destroyed on Earth, how could anyone conceivably bounce back from that and go on to conquer the cosmos? How many colonies did they have? Logically such a thing was impossible, for if, when humanity ever triumphed over the BETA, the first thing they would do would be to fortify Earth as never before.

She could have asked any of those. She didn't. Instead, she asked another, more simple question.

"Wasn't it dangerous?"

"It was. As I told you, our own sister colony Galaxy had a conspiracy going that almost destroyed Frontier. And it wasn't just them. Colony fleets go missing all the time, Megaroad-1 being the first. And we did have wars, terrible ones, with other alien races we met. The Protodeviln, the Vajra, and even the odd rogue Zentradi fleet that crosses our path," Hibiki clenched his fist. "But we always won in the end."

"So you beat them?" Yuzuka closed her eyes in wonder. Zentradi, Protodeviln, Vajra. Three alien races that he'd claimed his people had met and bested. If this was a fantasy delusion of humanity finally beating the BETA, it was a comforting one indeed.

"No, we didn't beat them. We befriended them. 'Do you not defeat your enemies when you make friends of them?' So said Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States of America," Hibiki nodded. "Although, I don't think that was quite what he meant when Basara Nekki rammed a speaker into the flagship of a Meltradi battle group and hit them with rock music."

Safe to say, Yuzuka just stared.

"You go around making friend with aliens." Yuzuka paused, then added, "With rock music."

"There are some enemies no amount of force of arms can defeat."

"I think I'm going to need some context here," Yuzuka sighed in exasperation.

"And I have one for you. In the First Space War, we had one ship: the SDF-1 _Macross_. The Zentradi had _five hundred thousand_, each as powerful as ours. They encircled the earth and started blowing everything away from orbit. Billions died."

Yuzuka stared, the sudden turnaround from his idealistic picture of this description of horror leaving her speechless. He may have mentioned it to her earlier, but she hadn't expected him to use the near extinction of mankind as his perfect example.

"Ninety percent of all life on the planet was wiped out in the span of an hour. The ecosystem was wrecked. And our ship was horribly, horribly outgunned," Hibiki elaborated.

"A Kobayashi Maru. You were faced with an unwinnable situation," Yuzuka nodded, understanding just what he had meant earlier. However as grim as the situation he described was, one thing was clear. "Someone found another way."

Hibiki nodded.

"Lynn Minmei did. The Zentradi have a warlike culture, I'll spare you the details, but safe to say they knew nothing outside fighting and killing. Friendship, compassion, love… I'm not sure they even had words for those until we came along. Minmei showed them there was more to life than that."

"How?"

"She stood on the bridge of the _Macross_ and basically sang her lungs out on every radio channel the _Macross_ could broadcast. The culture shock caused huge chunk of the Zentradi fleet to defect on the spot and gave the _Macross_ an opening to take out the Zentradi flagship. With that, we staved off extinction while simultaneously laying the foundation for our future alliance."

"She-She sang? She sung and pacified the aliens. I'm finding that a little hard to believe!" Yuzuka just couldn't picture it. Her mind rebelled at the thought, the logic, that a single girl could somehow end a war by herself just by standing on the deck of a battleship and start singing. This was the talk of a crazy person!

Yet looking at Hibiki's serene expression now, Yuzuka couldn't help but believe. It never occurred to Yuzuka she had long forgotten he was delusional. His every action was that of a man who had lived years in this supposed 'fantasy world', a world that a small part of her was beginning to believe, just a little bit, actually existed.

"And that's why I said change the game. No one in their right minds would try that unless they were really desperate. And 'desperate' did not describe the Macross at that point. Billions dead, all our weapons useless, and we still found a way out," Hibiki closed his eyes at the memory. "The song she sang was '_Ai Oboete Imasuka_'. 'Do You Remember Love'. It is the most beloved song in the galaxy."

"It sounds like a fairy tale a world where we could find peace with the BETA and live in harmony." Yuzuka sighed. A world that was impossible in real life. How could humanity hope to coexist with the BETA if they couldn't even co-exist with each other?

It must have been nice, growing up in such an environment. Knowing despite any difficulty, there was always the proverbial 'third option' that would resolve the situation perfectly. Much like the songs Hibiki had given her it sound just too good to be true.

"It's not a fairy tale world, Yuzuka. As I said, battles still happen all the time. While miracles like that happen, they are few and far between. Sometimes we still have to stand and fight for what we hold dear. We still have a standing military, and the organization I belonged to was in fact a mercenary company."

"You were a mercenary?" Yuzuka said in shock. She had heard of mercenaries before. Popular Japanese perceptions held that mercenaries were bloodthirsty, honor-less savages who fought for the highest bidder and held no loyalty to anyone but the coin. Rare as they were, even in this desperate world, such scoundrels existed.

Hibiki, with all his talk of hope, compassion and love, matched none of that stereotype.

"I am the newest member of Strategic Military Services' SVF-118 aboard the carrier _Saratoga_. We were tasked with Special Operations in protecting Colony worlds near the Galactic Core, although my squadron was recently requisitioned to test a new FTL drive that would have reinvented space travel." Hibiki explained. "SMS isn't the usual outfit of mercs. We fulfill the function of a small quick deployment expeditionary force that isn't bound by the usual red tape. Kind of like how the United States tend to portray their Marines. Our PMC status also lets us conduct operations without waiting for NUNS approval, like deploying to rescue refugees even while higher ups are still playing the political game. In 2059, SMS were the ones who foiled the Galaxy plot and ended the war with the Vajra without any further bloodshed at great cost to themselves."

"That… is a very weird business model," Yuzka said. From the sounds of it, these so called mercenaries were less 'soldiers of fortune' and more like the wandering knights-errant of old.

"Well, Richard Biller isn't a normal businessman, and SMS soldiers aren't your usual breed of mercs."

"What did you do for them? What's an SVF Squadron do?"

Hibiki raised his hand. Ring, middle and index fingers together. Thumb and pinky outstretched into a V.

From the darkness in different parts of the Hanger, two other young ladies listened to his final words. The first was redheaded girl who crouched inside the service elevator, now convinced more than ever that her assignment had just entered the world of crazy talk. The second was a small teenage girl who watched them from the shadows cast under the Fubuki's form, her sharp hearing now confirming what she had suspected all along.

But neither would interrupt Yuzuka and Hibiki in that one, magical moment.

As he raised his hand to the ceiling, and the stars beyond that, Yuzuka completely forgot the rumors of his insanity and allowed herself, just for that brief moment, to be lost in his dream.

* * *

"I am one who flew on the wings of the Valkyries."

* * *

Authors Afterword:

There really isn't much to say this time. This is the first part of a short multi-chapter fic dealing with the first encounter between the A-01 Valkyries and Project Valkyrie. As I noted in -Try Again- my muse is going to jump around quite a bit to whatever time period seems interesting to me, so don't expect me to write stuff out chronological order.

This is set a few months after -Try Again-, and much has happened since Yui's historic speech, some of which will be elaborated on in the next chapter. The most glaring thing of course would be Project Valkyrie's unwitting detrimental effect on Alternative IV and how despite their best intentions, their ignorance of the Alternative Plans is about to impact the story in a big way.

I hope you as readers will enjoy this short release.


	2. Valkyries Pt 2

Disclaimer - The Muv Luv and the Macross Franchises are the respective copyright of their creators, Kouki Uchiyama and Shouji Kawamori, and I do not own the characters, storyline or respective settings of either franchise in any shape or form. All other references to pop culture likewise belong to their respective copyright holders.

Again, special thanks to Wild_Goose_01 for his help as a BETA. Seriously, this guy knows his stuff.

* * *

"_The duty of the fighter pilot is to patrol his area of the sky, and shoot down any enemy fighters in that area. Anything else is rubbish._"

- Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron

"_Never abandon the possibility of attack. Attack even from a position of inferiority, to disrupt the enemy's plans. This often results in improving one's own position."_

- General Adolf Galland, Luftwaffe.

* * *

"I can't believe you actually got a Pin-Point Barrier fitted on this thing! Vinnie, you're a freaking genius!" Yuuya whistled in appreciation as he walked around the VTF-0(2) that was marked in black with red trim, Blaze's personal colors. "Shit, we only started seeing those on Valkyries around the '40s, and these guys are getting it as early as '01. You must have rushed the development on this one."

"Yuuya, that PPB is just about the only thing standing between you and a shitload of BETA triple-A. Hell yeah I rushed it! Besides I was just regurgitating the basic super dimensional force theory from high school." While his words were upbeat, Vincent's face was anything but. "The PPB was intended for a use with an engine with much more output than this one, I can't guarantee how well it'll hold up against Laser fire from the BETA."

"Can it take a shot or two?"

"Well, if the numbers are right, yes. But that's _all_ it will be able to take before it has to recharge," Vincent admitted. "And don't even try using it to block something from a Magnus Lux, I'm going to need much more power from the engines for something like that."

"Can it block a 36mm shell from an Assault Cannon?" Yuuya mused.

Vincent stared at his friend, incredulous. "Yuuya, that's like comparing a shot from a 55mm gun-pod with a shot from a Monster. Those 36mm shells aren't gonna to do jack."

"Well then, there you go!" Yuuya gave his old friend a pat on the back. "Now let's see how we're going to get this thing to Blaze in case he needs to make a quick getaway."

* * *

**Muv Luv: Do You Remember Luv**

**-Valkyrie-**

**Part Two**

* * *

Yuzuka sat staring at her breakfast with glassy eyes and an unfocused stare. Even though the PX was packed full of personnel talking animatedly, all ready for a new day of combat exercises, Yuzuka's mind was so preoccupied that she might as well have been sitting alone. Her mind was still turning over the conversation she had with Hibiki last night, and the things she had heard.

"_I am one who flew on the wings of Valkyries."_

Hibiki had been unable to elaborate further than that, his emotions apparently getting the better of him. Yuzuka had left the hangar shortly after as the hour had really grown very late. She didn't mind. After what she had heard the previous night from Hibiki, Yuzuka needed some time to properly digest everything she had learned.

"I am one who flew on the wings of Valkyries," Yuzuka said aloud, tasting the words in her mouth. Her limited knowledge of European culture told her that Valkyries were some sort of Norse warrior goddess, but nothing more than that. What could he mean? Why did he say those words with such reverence and respect? Such thoughts plagued Yuzuka's mind like a cancer, questions so all-consuming she couldn't let them go no matter how much she tried.

"I am one who flew on the wings of Valkyries," Yuzuka repeated again.

"What was that?" Akira said in between mouthfuls of her breakfast. "Seriously, you've been murmuring that phase all morning."

"Nothing, just thinking," Yuzuka sighed.

"Stop being so glum, Yuzuka!" Akira said happily. "Today we really get to test our mettle against the Royal Guard! Aren't you excited?"

"Not really, Akira."

Unlike Yuzuka, who had been obsessing over her conversation with Hibiki, Isumi Akira was as bright and energetic as ever. Today's exercises were TSF on TSF combat, something every Eishi trainee was raring to take part in. Such exercises where a surefire way of measuring one's strength as an Eishi against their peers. Yuzuka would probably have been equally enthused if her mind hadn't been occupied with Hibiki's cryptic phrase.

"It's that Tatsunami person again isn't it?" Akira frowned. "I told you that boy was trouble. What did he do to upset you this time?"

"He just told me why he was put in a mental hospital, that's all."

"Well, that's just great," Akira grumbled irately. "Yeah, that will kill your mood."

Yuzuka wondered just how much she should tell her friend. Hibiki's story sounded like complete and utter nonsense now that she reflected on it, and there was no way Akira would even swallow even a fraction of the tale she had heard. Yuzuka couldn't help but wonder if there was truth behind his outrageous words, the dream of a better world for humanity, but she knew very few of her comrades would share the same view.

"Listen to me, Yuzuka, ignore that stupid wannabe Yankee," Akira advised her in a grave yet worried tone. "I don't know what he told you, but obviously this guy is bad news. Take whatever he said and throw it out of the window."

Although there was no way Yuzuka could do that even if she wanted to, she humored her friend and nodded her head. Akira really was a good friend, even if she was a bit overprotective at times. "Okay."

"You stay away from him, you hear?" Akira said sharply before she pumped a closed fist in the air. "Now, forget about that idiot and focus on what's before us: TSF on TSF combat! We shall prove to those blue blooded hicks the true power of the regular army!"

Yuzuka looked at her friend and then shook her head disapprovingly. TSF on TSF combat.

This was going to be a real mess.

* * *

"Taii, the principal's utterly insane!"

Second Lieutenant Suzumiya Akane chewed her thumb irately as she paced around her assigned quarters, her phone pressed against her ear. On the other end of the secured line, Captain Isumi Michiru listened understandingly as her subordinate let out her frustrations in her report. Because she had been that unsettled by Tatsunami's confession to that IJA cadet, Akane had waited until the following morning when her state of mind was slightly better to deliver her report.

"This Tatsunami idiot really thinks he's from outer space! From the future even! And that's not even factoring in his other eccentricities! Are you absolutely sure this is our man?" Akane rambled. "I mean, this guy seriously believes it. I thought he was just this stupid draft dodger before, but as it turned out he really is full of delusions!"

"Well, that is to be expected, I guess," the Captain replied calmly.

"What the hell do you mean, 'that is to be expected'? If this loony is seriously the only way to save our skins, then we're in serious trouble Captain!"

"Suzumiya-shōi, did it ever occur to you that he might be telling the truth?"

Akane stopped midrant, Isumi's sudden words cutting off her line of thought so quickly it felt like someone had just pulled the carpet out from under her. Isumi's words were so radical, do out of place that Akane's frustration and anger were doused like a small fire under a wet rag.

"Captain, you can't possibly be saying…"

"Are you sure this line is secure?" Isumi asked seriously. When Akane answered in the affirmative, the woman continued. "What I am about to tell you, you cannot tell anyone else. Besides myself and Professor Kouzuki, only three other people at Yokohama Base know about our theory. You will be the fourth. I had hoped I wouldn't have to tell you given how sensitive this is, but it looks like you're going to find out anyway."

Akane gave an audible gulp. She was stepping into something way above her pay grade.

"Most of what we had were pure conjecture, but it would seem that what you've seen from Tatsunami thus farhas confirmed our theory," Isumi explained calmly. "When Professor Kouzuki started seeing massive reductions in our funding that had been redirected into to Project Valkyrie, she started digging into what was causing it. We expected foul play from Alternative V supporters-"

"Pardon me, Captain, but what's this to do with Tatsunami?" Akane asked. "How does anything relating to Alternative V have to do with Tatsunami?"

"I'm getting there, Suzumiya," Isumi continued, her voice carrying an unspoken request not to be interrupted any further. "We did discover our budget cuts were the direct result of Alterative V's supporters. But in our investigation, Kouzuki noticed the unnatural rate at which Project Valkyire was turning out new technologies."

"Unnatural rate?"

"Think about it Akane. In the span of six months Takamura has turned out so many new weapons that the Fuji Tatical Fighter Training Group can't keep up. It took years to develop the Type-94 when it was first introduced, but she's planning on having the VTF of hers in production by the middle of next year."

Now that she thought about it in more detail, Akane realized that Captain Isumi was right. What Project Valkyrie was doing was irregular. Most wouldn't really notice how abnormal the rapid pace of Project Valkyrie's development was, especially given how the military and political landscape was changing so quickly, but on closer inspection Akane could see something odd was happening.

"Look at the weapons and technologies they're coming up with," Isumi continued. "Energy Conversion Armor. Lasers. Micro-missiles. These aren't things you would normally develop for use against massed enemy formations like the BETA."

Akane sat on her bed and mulled over the Captain's words. ECA would artificially strengthen a TSF's super-carbon armor to almost ridiculous levels. Chemical laser weapons were powerful, but were ineffective beyond point blank ranges due to atmospheric interference with the beams. And micro-missiles… Akane blinked as she realized what the Captain was getting at.

"These are weapons developed for an air fighter."

"A space fighter actually. Laser weapons are more effective in space," Isumi corrected. "Somehow Takaura got her hands on some kind of research goldmine and has since been introducing these technologies to the world under Project Valkyire."

"That bitch! She's doing this for her own personal glory!" Akane snarled, her fury towards Takamura soaring to new heights. Given the secrecy surrounding Project Valkyrie, it was the logical assumption to jump to. After all, what possible motivation could Takamurahave for hiding this information from the public at large? At least before, Takamura was just some foolish girl doing her job. But now?

"I don't pretend to know what Takamura's motivations are, but I don't think they're entirely selfish considering she's brought the 44th Cerberus Battalion into it," Isumi admonished Akane for insulting a fellow Eishi of Japan. "Still, Takamura is playing things very close to her chest and may be in Alternative V's pocket. The security around Dover has almost doubled since she set up shop there, so there's no point in trying to get in that way. Not even Kouzuki's spy can get in. It's ridiculous."

"Tatsunami is our only lead to get answers." Akane nodded, now understanding the responsibility that was placed on her shoulders. Who would have thought that this Eishi washout might be the key to the survival of Alternative IV?

"Correct, that's why it's imperative that you get to Tatsunami before anyone from Project Valkyrie," Isumi ordered gravely, causing Akane to pale at the realization she had forgotten a certain little detail in her report, one that she had glossed over in her tirade about Tatsunami's mental state.

Namely the little detail of that blue and white VTF-0(2) Valkyrie sitting nice and pretty in its own private little corner of Atsugi Base.

Quickly glancing at the clock, Akane was horrified to realize she had just spent the better part of a day and a bit more without being in contact with Tatsunami ,while one of Takamura's people was on this very same base, probably for the very same reason she was.

And likely doing what she was not.

"Tatsunami is our one lead into what's really going in inside Dover. We need to get him before-"

"Captain, I'm going to have to call you back," Akane said quickly and then hung up without preamble, scrambling out of her room as she did so. Akane would apologize for her rudeness later, for she had just messed up the most important assignment of her entire career and needed to make it right.

"Please let me be in time, please let me be in time, please let me be in time…"

* * *

"Hey, Tatsunami! Get your ass down here!"

Hibiki sighed when he heard the Pops call him from the base of the Type-97 Fubuki he was working on, wondering what would prompt the old man to pull him away from his duties. Wiping his hands clean of grease and oil, Hibiki tired to make himself look somewhat presentable when he got himself down to where Pops was waiting with a short brunette girl in a UN Army uniform.

"Hey Pops, what can I do for you?" Hibiki said, keeping a cautious eye on the stranger. Despite her apparent youth, the girl had the rank insignia of a Captain.

What really surprised Hibiki was that Pops suddenly spoke up, in somewhat broken English instead of the usual Japanese he'd been dealing with for the last few months.

"Private Tatsunami, this is Captain _Nat-ash-ha Rat-rova_ of the UN Army's 118th Squadron," Pops shifted uncomfortably on his feet, knowing he'd mispronounced the girl's name. "Uh, she's here with some news about your cousin serving in Dover Base."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Blaze." Natasha said in Russian accented-English, she was probably not a native speaker of Japanese, as she offered a hand to him, which Hibiki graciously accepted.

"The pleasure is mine, Cap-"

And that was when what she'd just said finally caught up with him. Blaze. She'd addressed him as 'Blaze'. His call-sign. He hadn't had anyone address him as Blaze since he had arrived here. And the 118th Squadron? That couldn't possibly be a coincidence, could it?

"I'm here on behalf of your distant 'cousin', Lieutenant Yuuya Bridges," Natasha said without even missing a beat. "He just heard about your accident and your recent difficulties in the IJA and wants to get in contact with you."

Pops stroked his chin thoughtfully as the older man listened to her words. "Yuuya Bridges, wouldn't that be the same man who-"

"Who is the lead test pilot for the VTF, yes." Natahsa affirmed Pop's suspicions before turning back to Hibiki with a disarming smile. "Lieutenant Bridges doesn't have many relatives he is particularly close to at the moment, and when he heard of Tatsunami's 'condition' he asked to see if it was possible for Private Tatsunami to be transferred to a military hospital in Dover. As he was busy with the VTF trials, Captain Takamura sent me in his place."

"Awfully mundane job for a Captain." Pops pointed out.

"Well I am actually here to hunt down and neutralize a suspected RLF cell by any means necessary. This was pretty much on the way for me so I offered Bridges to do it for him. Takamura's a good comrade, especially since she's the one who gave me my weapons." Nastasha shrugged, causing both Hibiki and Pops to stare at her. From the sounds of it, she was a UN assassin!

"Well, I'll leave the two of you alone," Pops laughed nervously as he backed away from the scene. It seemed that Nastasha's frank admission had spooked the older man, and he was quickly getting the hell away. "Hibiki, take as much time as you need!"

The older technician all but ran away from the scene, leaving Hibiki and Natasha alone.

"Was that really necessary?" Hibiki asked.

"Yes, Ensign." Natasha turned back towards Hibiki, who now regarded her with a more cautious eye. "Now, shall we move to talk somewhere more private?"

* * *

"Apologies for not saying it outright, Ensign Tatsunami," As it turned out the girl was actually named Nastassja Ivanova and apparently she was a subordinate, not a superior, of Yuuya's. The younger girl had taken him to one of the C-130 hangars on the far side of the base for their private discussion.

The pair were standing next to some kind of jet-plane sitting comfortably in the spacious hangar. Hibiki couldn't see what it was since someone had draped an olive green sheet over the entire thing, but Nastassja told him it belonged to her. Hibiki noted it was much smaller than other aircraft on the base, most being large transport planes, but eventually discounted it from his mind, since he had more pressing things to worry about.

"I am not supposed to be here, hence why I am hesitant to use names carelessly in this place." Nastassja explained.

"I understand. I'm not supposed to be here either!" Hibiki joked lightly.

"No, Ensign. I am listed as KIA in the Soviet Army," Ivanova explained, causing Hibiki to stare at her in surprise. "My unit was sacrificed by my government to cover up several of their mistakes, and it was only though Yuuya's intervention that I survived. He, and the people we work with, could get into serious trouble if it ever is discovered that I am alive."

"…I think you'd better tell me everything," Hibiki dropped his easygoing attitude when he saw the urgency in her eyes. He'd had heard of soldiers like her before, individuals who were 'ghosts' and lived completely off the grid by choice or by circumstance. From the way she was talking, Nastassja was of the latter variety, and she and whoever had sent her were likely taking a big risk by coming to see him. "You told me you know Yuuya Bridges."

"That is correct. 'Second Lieutenant' Yuuya Bridges is currently a US Army TSF pilot attached to Project Valkyrie in Dover Base," Nastassja explained seriously, her eyes continuing to scan her surroundings even though she was allegedly in a private area. "You and I know he is more than that, Blaze."

That settled it. Hibiki had been secretly worried she was some prankster, or worse, sent to make a fool out of him, using information from his psychiatric evaluations during his time at the hospital. Thankfully, between her obscure references to classical literature and his use of his call sign, two things he had never mentioned to anyone in this world, Hibiki knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Nastassja knew his flight lead. The question was whether he could trust this strange 'Ghost' or not. He'd long learned that this world operated on a completely different set of rules from what he was used to, and Nastassja was a complete stranger who might very well have her own adgenda. For all Hibiki knew, Yuuya was in terrible danger and Nastassja might have had something to do with it.

"This is all fine and dandy Nastassja, but what makes you think I'm doing to trust you? I don't even know what Project Valkyrie is." Hibiki folded his arms challengingly. What happened next was quite unexpected, since Nastassja simply stared at him like he'd just grown a second head.

A few awkward seconds ticked by in silence as Captain Nastassja Ivanova regarded Hibiki as the biggest idiot she had ever laid eyes on.

"Er, did I say something wrong?"

"You… have_ no idea _what _Project Valkyrie _is?" Nastassja said in disbelief.

"Well, no, not really. I don't get out very much," Hibiki admitted with embarrassment. It seemed like his lack of keeping up with the news was really hurting him now. Project Valkyrie seemed like one of those things that everyone should know about. It wasn't his fault, really. After getting out of the mental hospital and being turned into a grease monkey, then branded as a coward and mental basket case, Hibiki was obviously less enthused about keeping up with the news, especially since most of it was what he'd decided was nothing more than nationalist bullshit.

"You didn't hear Yui Takamura's speech about winning back the skies? How we have been changing the face of warfare with accelerated weapons development? The Carrier-class BETA attack in Ireland? The Red Shift incident? Preparations for Operation Overlord II? _None of it?_"

"Er, no," Hibiki admitted, rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment, leading a vexed Nastassja to palm her face out of pure shame and start swearing in some eastern European language he couldn't identify. Okay, now that she'd laid it out to him, obviously he'd missed some stuff by being a shut in. The awkwardness lasted for another few short seconds before Nastassja recollected herself raised her head again.

"I can't believe this. Even Kjellburg knew about us, and she was on the run from the CIA!" Nastassja shook her head in shame. "Yuuya did warn me you were a 'dork'. I can see he was entirely correct in his opinion about you, Ensign."

"Yeah, well, that sounds like him," Hibiki grumbled. "So, uh, could you give me the basic lowdown? Pretend I'm from out of town and have no idea what the hell I'm doing."

"Project Valkyrie is a UN weapons development group. We build Valkyries." She raised a hand and rapped her knuckles against the covered plane behind her.

Hibiki stared at Nastassja in confusion for a moment, not really understanding what she was talking about. However when his eyes went to the covered fighter and he truly gave it a once over, his eyes widened in shock. "Is that a…"

"Yes. This is a Valkyrie. This one was made using local parts," Nastassja smiled with satisfaction. If Hibiki wasn't mistaken he would say she was actually proud of the thing. "Not anywhere as powerful as Yuuya's Excalibur or Lilia's Nightmare Plus, though Lowell is trying to get as close as he possibly can.."

"Lowell, as in Vincent Lowell of Shinsei Industries fame? He's here too?" Hibiki asked. "Figures. He was in the back seat of Yuuya's VF-19A when everything went down."

Although he only had her word to go by, Hibiki felt relief course through his veins as he conversed with Nastassja. Aside from the fact she was probably the one thing that proved the first fifteen years of his life were not some accident induced fantasy, she told him of what happened to his other wing-mates in Mobius Squadron. He was relieved to hear that the rest of his squadron were safe and sound in Dover, and it took all his self-control not to prostate himself at her feet and beg her to take him to them, consequences be damned.

Even so, months of being stuck in this unfamiliar place had instilled a good deal of paranoia into Hibiki, and the young man wasn't about to simply trust Nastassja because she had a Valkyrie and claimed to know his friends. The fact that the three of them, and Yuuya's Shinsei friend, had chosen to throw their lot in with the locals was also very suspicious.

Hibiki's experiences with 'Imperial Japan' had effectively soured him to the native culture, and he wasn't convinced that someone as idealistic as Yuuya or as free-spirited as Ilfriede would ever decide to side with these ultranationalists even if the war with the BETA was going as badly as he believed it was.

On top of that, Nastassja was apparently a 'ghost' who existed off the grid. Instant red flag right there in his book. In short, Hibiki believed it was too good to be true and kept his guard up, waiting patiently for the other shoe to drop.

"Well that seems nice and all, Captain, but I'm not really mobile at the moment," Hibiki pointed out candidly. "You and I both know who I really am, but nobody else will believe us. There's not much chance I can up and leave unless you're planning on abducting me in the middle of the night."

"Of course not, Ensign. My mission here was to make contact with you and ascertain your identity. Once that was done, I was to put you in contact with my superior, Captain Yui Takamura, and your superior, Lieutenant Yuuya Bridges," Nastassja explained smartly. Reaching into her uniform pocket, she produced what appeared to be a cell phone and handed it to him.

It only took Hibiki a moment to grasp what it was.

"This is a-!"

"Secure line long range communicator modified by Lowell. It is almost impossible to trace when used in the right conditions," Nastassja instructed. "When it rings, drop whatever you are doing and answer."

Hibiki turned the object over in his hands with a frown. He recognized it of course; it long range fold wave communicator, normally used by SMS to conduct operations on underdeveloped words where infrastructure wasn't up yet. From the looks of it though, Lowell had made some extensive modifications to it so that it was harder to intercept the transmissions to and from it.

"You do realize I have a job to do, right? It's going to be mighty suspicious if I have to up and take a call," Hibiki said, pocketing the communicator as he did so.

"They will be sure to call you after hours. Try to be present in a secure location between twenty one and twenty two hundred hours local," Nastassja clarified. Seeing the confusion on his face, the Czech girl went into further detail. "The intelligence agencies of this world are very attentive. Even with the secure line, it is possible for it to be intercepted unless we stick to a certain window we've identified. It's not possible to protect all of our secrets, but we can stop our enemies from learning about the important things, namely you."

Hibiki rolled his eyes. Great, more cloak and dagger business.

"Well I'll try and keep that in mind," Hibiki said, "So, just out of curiosity, you're not really a Captain are you?"

"I used to be, but that part of me died some time ago," Ivanova informed him with a shrug. "The rank serves me well though. High enough I can pull on it when I need to, low enough there won't be too many questioning looks."

"Makes sense. So is there anything else? I should probably be heading back to work so that people won't be so suspicious."

"Nothing much, other that I am to remain here as your back-up until your Valkyrie arrives."

Hibiki's entire thought process screeched to a halt.

"My _what?_"

* * *

When TSFs fought against other TSFs, especially with these kinds of numbers, Yuzuka felt less like an Eishi in an eighteen meter all TSF, and more like an infantryman stuck in urban combat.

Yuzuka's Fubuki took cover behind a building while paint rounds whizzed through the air. Despite the apparent difference in performance between the Type-82 and the Type-97, the IRG cadets were putting up one hell of a fight. This shouldn't have surprised Yuzuka, but it did. The battle on the main front had been going poorly, with the highly trained IRG cadets decimating their IJA counterparts in straight out direct combat.

Seeing as how they were long in a straight up fight, Geisha squadron had attempted a flanking maneuver to ambush their IRG counterparts, but they'd run into some stiff opposition with it turned out someone on the other team had the same idea. Now both Geisha and the IRG team were playing cat and mouse in this mockup of a city.

"Well this is just great," Akira's annoyed voice sounded over the channel. Akira's Fubiki was taking cover behind the building just across the street from Yuzuka's and was oppationally popping out to take potshots at the Zuikakus. "We need to push up or they'll overrun the main force."

Akira sounded disappointed, and Yuzuka couldn't blame her. The situation was bad. This exercise wasn't the one on one duels of skill that they had been promised, much rather this was a grim reminder that battles in real life were more often than not gritty affairs that had no place of honor or glory. The way they were fighting, this duck and cover routine, made it difficult to tell just how many enemies they were facing . The volume of suppressive fire made it almost impossible for a single scout to move in closer to check without getting hit.

"Geisha-1 to Geisha squadron. It's a stalemate and I'm all flat out of things to try. If anyone has any bright ideas, now's the time," Yuzuka's flight lead grumbled irately, causing Yuzuka to giggle at the admission of defeat that would never come from a real officer of the IJA. Well, Asagi was a trainee like themselves at the end of the day and she wasn't a true commander yet.

"No ideas, boss," came one reply.

"Sorry, Geisha-1," was another.

"Geisha-1, this is Geisha-9. I might have an idea," Yuzuka said, cutting the rest of her squadron off. "It's pretty risky though and we're guaranteed to take casualties."

"Well, we're getting hammered anyway. Speak your mind, Sendou," Asagi replied. The channel quieted down as the rest of Geisha flight waited with bated breath.

"All-out attack," Yuzuka said. "We come out shooting at the same time, and charge their position. We have superior mobility and speed. Let's just rush them."

"What?" Someone replied, although it was so soft Yuzuka couldn't tell who responded. Yuzuka honestly couldn't blame whoever reacted that way. What she'd proposed was just suicide by any normal standard. But that's why it was going to work.

"Face it girls, the longer we wait here, the worse off the situation on the main front is going to be for the rest of our comrades," Yuzuka stated clearly. "With the way these guys are fighting, I don't think there are too many of them and they're trying to stall us. I say we stop this silly game of hide and seek and just get it done with. We win, we win. We lose, we lose. But if we play around like this, the main force is going to lose anyway."

"That's quite a gamble, Sendou. What if they have more firepower than you expect?" Asagi murmured in contemplation. She was a capable leader, even as a cadet, but she was prone to using defensive strategies even when there were opportunities afoot.

"If they had more, they'd have attacked us already."

"A choice between certain defeat and probable defeat?" Akira chuckled as she stepped in to back up Yuzuka's suggestion. "Well, I know what I'm going to pick."

"I agree with Sendou. This is getting tiresome!" Someone else chirped. Soon there were affirmative calls for support all across the channel. The vote was near unanimous, the remaining Eishi of Geisha Squadron wanted to fight.

"Fine, we'll attack," Asagi relented. "On three. One."

As Asagi counted down, Yuzuka tightened her grip around the controls and wondered if she really had made the right choice. Like Asagi had said, she was making quite the gamble, and the volume of suppressive fire was quite substantial. What if Yuzuka had miscalculated? What if she'd just caused the defeat of the entire IJA team?

"Two."

As if to comfort her, Hibiki's smiling face came to her mind suddenly, as did his words from the previous day. _"Yeah, you may fail. Yeah, sometimes you lose. But that's life. If you think that winning is impossible in the first place then you've already lost. Sometimes, when defeat seems all but certain, there is a way to take total victory instead, that's sitting just right at your feet. You just have to look."_

Yuzuka suddenly felt a lot more confident.

"_THREE!"_

* * *

"Five guys. I can't believe we spent all that time playing cat and mouse with five guys!" Akira laughed happily with Yuzuka. "Yuzuka, you are a genius!"

"It was just a calculated risk," Yuzuka admitted modestly. The pair walked towards one of the base's meeting rooms to see that IRG Colonel who had requested to meet with them.

The IJA team had managed to secure a victory thanks to Geisha's flanking maneuver, the ranged weapons from two directions creating an effective kill zone for the surprised IRG Team. Yuzuka had managed to read the situation right; the enemy flankers had been badly outnumbered by Geisha and were actually stalling them. Yuzuka had exited her Fubuki only to be accosted by her jubilant teammates, and would have been paraded around the base on their shoulders had she not had a prior engagement to attend to.

"Well this is the room," Akira said, noting the sign on the door they had stopped before. "Damn, meeting a Colonel. I have butterflies in my stomach."

"Me too," Yuzuka agreed. The pair quickly did some last minutes checks on their dress uniforms to make sure they were in tip top shape, then Yuzuka rapped her knuckles on the door.

"Enter," An unfamiliar voice said from behind the door.

"Cadet Sendou and Cadet Isumi, requesting permission to enter, Ma'am!" Yuzuka announced. When the reply was in affirmative, Yuzuka and Akira opened the door and quickly entered the room…

And came face to face with the Shogun's personal bodyguard.

To say that Yuzuka and Akira were stunned would not do their surprise justice.

Colonel Shirogane Hikaru was famous as they came. Shirogane was one of the big names in Japan. A woman whose wit was matched only by her skill in battle, Shirogane was one of the most powerful and influential soldiers in modern Japan, right up there with General Ikaruga and Captain Takamura.

Yuzuka and Akira were in the presence of an honest to god war hero, and the Shogun's right hand to boot. They hadn't even been aware she was on the base.

"At ease, ladies," the Colonel said with bemusement. It took Yuzuka and Akira a few more moments to remember they hadn't actually saluted the older woman yet, leading to the pair stammering out hurried salutes and introductions. "I said 'at ease', ladies."

"I-It's an honor to meet you, Shirogane-taisa!" Yuzuka stammered out, dropping the salute as she did so. The Colonel sat comfortably in one of the sofas in the room with a cup tea already set out on the table. Shirogane motioned for the two to sit down of the sofas on across from her and both cadets scrambled over each other trying to obey the simple instruction.

"Ease up, Cadet Isumi. I'm not one to observe formalities in this kind of private environment," Shirogane laughed, and then began pouring tea for them. Akira and Yuzuka stared at the woman across from them in abject horror at the thought of their superior engaging in such a breach of protocol; namely a high ranking officer presenting tea to two cadets who hadn't even gotten their commissions yet. "Here, please," the woman said brightly as she presented two poured cups of tea to duo.

"Colonel, I-we shouldn't!" Akira waved both hands before her, panic written all over her features.

"Relax, Cadet. I want to do this," Shirogane noted jovially, setting down the two cups of tea before the cadets above their protests. "Besides, I'm the one who asked for the two of you here when you have such a busy schedule. Serving you two a cup of tea is the least I can do for imposing on your training schedule so needlessly."

"It was no trouble, Colonel! We're really honored you want to see us," Yuzuka said quickly before either of them embarrassed themselves any further.

To an Eishi cadet not even out of training like her, meeting the Shogun's personal bodyguard was a dream come true. Colonel Shirogane Hikaru, the legendary Wolf of Yokohama herself, who'd singlehandedly held over ten thousand BETA at bay and later went on to slay thirty Fort-Class BETA in the span of five minutes. Shirogane was the closest thing young Japanese Eishi like Yuzuka had to an 'American Rock Star'. Yuzuka could scarcely believe this same woman was now serving her tea and taking time out of her own presumably hectic schedule to see her.

"So, I suppose you two are wondering why I decided to call you here to meet in private, Cadet Isumi and Cadet Sendou," Shirogane said, taking a small sip out of her own cup.

"Yes, ma'am!" Akira blurted out in a high pitched voice, before flushing red with embarrassment. Yuzuka couldn't help but wince sympathetically at Akira's predicament. She had always idolized Shirogane; it seemed meeting her idol was making the poor girl fall to pieces.

"I've seen both your training records. You two are the best Eishi of your cohort by quite a bit," Shirogane said. "And please don't try being modest. I saw how the two of you performed in the exercise earlier today. I was very impressed by your initiative, Cadet Sendou."

Yuzuka's face flushed bright red at the praise. "It was nothing really, Colonel. I just saw the situation and reacted accordingly. It was a gamble, nothing more!"

"Nothing ventured, nothing gained. We need more soldiers like you, Cadet Sendou." Shirogane answered smoothly. "And that is why I am here today. I am here to make you two a job offer."

Almost simultaneously, Yuzuka and Akira shared concerned looks with each other. "A job offer ma'am?" Akira ventured nervously.

"You aware of Project Valkyrie, correct?" Shirogane asked.

"Considering the waves Captain Takamura is making, it would be hard not to," Akira replied honestly.

"Well then, you probably should have heard about the new weapons she has been making," Shirogane reached into the suitcase beside her and took out a file from inside. Opening the file, Shirogane began to spread documents and photographs neatly on the table.

Leaning forward to inspect the pictures, Yuzuka and Akira found there were pictures of a very curious looking jet fighter that neither of them had seen before, both resting stationary on the ground and flying in the air. There were also some pictures featuring a giant humanoid shaped machine, shorter than a TSF but sill the size of a building, if Yuzuka had the scale right. And the final picture was of the jet fighter, except it had arms and legs and was holding some sort of rifle.

"Wait, could this be…" Akira started, but was cut off by Shirogane.

"I'm sure you both have heard of Takamura's intention to reclaim air superiority for mankind. This is the VTF-0 series of aircraft that she's developing to make that goal a reality," Shirogane explained, her finger pointing to each picture in turn to help Yuzuka and Akira understand where she was coming from.

"Can this thing really fight in BETA controlled airspace?" Akira marveled, completely enthralled by the pictures laid before them. Yuzuka on the other hand felt something begin to tug in back of her mind as she looked at each of the pictures in turn. Something about these photographs was making her feel like she should be making some sort of important connection somewhere, but for the life of her Yuzuka couldn't figure out what it was.

"If the fact the Europeans has diverted some of their research funding into Project Valkyrie after seeing it in actual combat is any indication, then I would say so. Rumor even has it the German Army is lobbying Boeing to _buy_ some of the prototype models," Shirogane informed them. "The VTF project is proving successful enough that the UN High Command is working with Project Valkyrie in setting up a training program for the VTF."

"You're offering us a chance to attend," Yuzuka concluded, connecting the dots easily enough.

Shirogane nodded her head in affirmation. "The training program will be based in Dover base in England and has twelve open slots. As one of the nations that founded Project Valkyrie, we can send up to two candidates to Dover. As the two best Eishi of your cohort, I am offering this chance for you to go there."

Naturally, both cadets were rendered completely speechless at the immense honor that was now being offered to them.

"This will not be an easy assignment. Given the experimental nature of the VTF weapons platform, you will be expected to not only be students, but also test pilots for Takamura. However, when… if… the VTF should ever enter into service in the IJA, you two will be our foremost authority on training and," Shirogane elaborated with a small smile. "If that happens, your career will be given quite the boost."

Yuzuka and Akira shared another look. The worried glint in Akira's eyes told Yuzuka she shared the same concerns as she did. On one hand, this was a unique honor, a once in a lifetime opportunity for them that had been given by one of their personal heroes. On the other hand, they would be training on an entirely new, unknown and unproven weapons platform that might not even be adopted in their nation's military. This training program would also take them thousands of miles away from their home to England, a foreign country that neither of them had been before, while the rest of their cohort received their postings.

Could they stay in training, knowing full well that back home their classmates had been already assigned to their units, perhaps even facing the prospect of death in battle?

"Can we have some time to think about this? You've given us quite a bit to take in, Colonel Shirogane," Akira said honestly.

"You may," the Colonel replied, once again picking up her teacup and sipping her tea with poise, "Please don't take too long. Apologies on the short notice, but the course is slated to start late next week.."

"That's a bit quick isn't it?" Yuzuka pointed out.

"The war moves quickly, even for a rear echelon researcher like Takamura. In fact, considering all the chaos and fighting Project Valkyries had gotten involved in, calling her rear echelon would be a mistake. Tthat week might as well be an eternity for someone like her," Shirogane said. "So, do either of you wish to fly on the wings of Valkyries?"

Yuzuka could almost feel her heart stop.

"We'll think about it, Colonel," Akira replied. "Right, Yuzuka? Yuzuka?"

Akira turned to look at her friend, only to see that Yuzuka was now staring at Shirogane in something beyond disbelief. Yuzuka had gone stiff as a statue, pale as plaster, her mouth hanging as her eyes locked with Shirogane's gaze.

Flying on the wings of Valkyries.

The exact words Hibiki had used last night.

"Yuzuka, are you alright?" Akira touched Yuzuka's arm in concern and even began to shake her. It was to no avail, as Yuzuka was far too dazed to even respond. Looking nervously between Shirogane and her friend, it was clear Akira was at a loss on what to do. "Yuzuka, what's the matter with you?"

"Colonel, what you just said about the wings of Valkyries…" Yuauka managed to say, but was unable to continue when her voice died in her throat.

"Hm, it seems like I said something I shouldn't have," Shirogane mused softly. The Colonel turned to Akira with a firm look. "Cadet Isumi, it would seem like your friend is in need of medical attention. Could you please go get the medical officer on duty?"

Shirogane's words seemed to shock poor Akira out of her confusion, and the young girl jolted to her feet in an instant. "Yes, ma'am I'll take her there right away." Akira seized Yuzuka by the arm…

"I asked you to bring the MO here, not take Cadet Sendou there," Shirogane ordered sternly. Suddenly, the jovial woman who has served them tea was gone, and this terrifying beast with piercing eyes was now sitting in her place. Akira and Yuzuka went deathly pale at the sight of Shirogane's gaze. "It doesn't look like Sendou is in any state to move, so bring the MO here. Do not make me repeat myself again, Cadet Isumi."

"Y-Yes, Colonel! I'll get the MO right away!" Akira let go of Yuzuka's arm and proceeded to bolt out the door as fast as her legs could carry her. Once Isumi was out the door, Shirogane calmly got off the sofa, walked across the room over to the door, and made sure it was properly closed and locked behind her.

The sound of the door locking was what finally snapped Yuzuka out of her stupor. Quickly turning to face the Colonel who was now leaning with her back to the door, Yuzuka regarded the woman with fearful eyes.

* * *

"She probably won't be back for another ten or so minutes," Shirogane said calmly. "We won't have much time."

"Wings of the Valkyries, those were the exact words you used," Yuzuka said, both to herself and to Shirogane as she tried to understand what was happening.

"Yes it was. So it would seem that that the rumors were right. Tatsunami did manage to make a friend. What are the odds that it would be you?" Shirogane smiled, except this time it was the smile of a predator with her prey caught helplessly in a trap. "Destiny works in funny ways, doesn't it?"

"This VTF, it's a Valkyrie isn't it? That's what Hibiki was talking about," Yuzuka shuffled away from Shirogane in fear, her mind trying to figure out what was going on. Yuzuka quickly scanned her surroundings, and sure enough there was no way out of the room aside from the one that Shirogane was now obstructing. Something was very wrong about this woman, more so than Hibiki and he believed he wasn't even from this planet!

On seeing Yuzuka's frightened reaction, Shirogane's face softened somewhat. "Calm down, Sendou. I'm not going to hurt you."

"How can I possibly know that?" Yuzuka said, still keeping herself as far away from Shirogane as bodily possible. "How do you know about Hibiki?"

"Would you believe it that I read his psychiatric reports inside out?" Yuzuka shook her head furiously, in reply. "I figured as much." Shirogane walked back to sofa and sat back down, gesturing for Yuzuka to drink her untouched tea. Yuzuka didn't so much as glance at it.

"Hibiki Tatsunami isn't from around here," Shirogane said once it became clear that Yuzuka wouldn't budge. "He is from exactly where he says he comes from. The Tatsunami Hibiki who went down in Tokayo Bay was not the same one who was pulled out of the water all those months ago. Anyone in the know who did a proper blood test would know he's not entirely human."

"Not… human?" Yuzuka stared.

"Hibiki Tatsunami is one quarter Zentran, on his father's side of course. I emphasize that it would take someone in the know to realize what kind of genetic markers to look for since his blood is quite diluted." Shirogane explained as she folded her arms in bemusement. "He doesn't have the same pointy ears Kjellburg has, so it makes his mixed heritage a little harder to sport."

"Why are you telling me all this?" Yuzuka said, suddenly very fearful for her life.

It didn't take a genius to know that this information she was been given so casually was the kind _wars_ were fought over. If even half of what Hibiki had told her was true, his very existence might be one of the most important deciding factors in the BETA war!

"I am telling you this because, quite frankly, that boy's had it pretty rough over the last half year. You're probably the only person he trusts right now," Shirogane explained tacitly.

"I've only known him for a day!"

"And he hasn't had anyone he could relate to in months, let alone a friend," Shirogane argued. "Right now, you're the only person he can call a friend. Don't underestimate how much isolation can affect a person's judgement. Whatever it may seem, I am not their enemy, nor am I yours. While my interests do not always coincide with those of Takamura and her band of merry misfits, we both have the best interests of humanity at heart. In this case, you might be the one bright spot in Tatsunami's life right now and instrumental for securing his mental wellbeing. _That_ makes you important to _me_, Sendou Yuzuka."

"You need me, because of him?" Yuzuka's mind swam. "Then the offer for the VTF…"

"Was actually a coincidence. I had planned to seek you out later; I did not expect the top Eishi cadet I had on my VTF candidate shortlist to be Tatsunami's friend," Shirogane supplied, irritation on her features. "Although in retrospect, Tatsunami making friends with someone with all the proper psychological markers for being an ace Valkyrie pilot wasn't so far of a stretch."

Now that the conversation was underway, Yuzuka felt herself calm down somewhat. It seemed that Shiogane had no intention of harming her. Even so, there were so many questions swimming through her head right now Yuzuka still felt completely unbalanced.

"So he's telling the truth. Hibiki is really from a different world." Yuzuka paused thoughtfully.

Hibiki Tatsunami was from another world. A better world. One without the BETA, where mankind held dominion over the stars. A world where humanity's mastery over the heavens was complete, and that they had the power to truly defend themselves against alien threats.

A world where Valkyries were humanity's' first line of defense against those who would threaten them.

"He didn't come alone did he?" Yuzuka concluded, her line of reasoning reaching this logical point. "That's where all the sudden advances in technology are coming from. He has comrades here."

"And they have found him after seven months of fruitless searching. But they are not the only ones," Shirogane warned. "Very soon, Tatsunami is going to have to make a choice between his old comrades and the ability to give us a fighting chance against the BETA, or the woman who might be Earth's last and best hope for an alternative resolution to this war."

"I'm afraid I don't understand. How can the two of them be mutually exclusive?"

Yuzuka mind was in complete turmoil. Frustration, anger and confusion warred against each other in her mind, against this woman who spoke only in riddles and puzzles. This latest bit of information merely served to confuse her even more.

"Sadly, such is the world we live in: that the choice between a peaceful solution and years of bloody war are distinct and mutual," Shirogane sighed, quickly checking her watch. "In any case, our time is almost up. Your friend will be back soon with the Medical Officer. I will use this as an excuse to have you taken off the rest of the day's exercises since there is much you need to think about. Rest assured, I will make sure this will not affect your final grade."

Yuzuka jumped out of her seat in distress at Shirogane's words. It was going to end there? Like this when there was still so much she didn't know? "You can't just leave it here like this, Colonel!I still have so many questions!"

"You and everyone else, Sendou Yuzuka. This is a world where shadows conceal the true threat," Shirogane sat up from the sofa, seeing as how Yuzuka hadn't so much as touched her tea, took it up and drained the entire teacup on one gulp. "Save Tatsunami, speak of none of this to anyone. If you do, I will know, and that may force my hands in ways you will not like. You may be more than a pawn on my board but you are not indispensable, Sendou Yuzuka."

"I-I understand." Yuzuka gulped at the flagrant threat.

Suddenly hard knocks erupted from the door.

"Colonel! I brought the MO but the door is locked! Please open up!" Akira's panicked but muffled call came through the door. Yuzuka and Shirogane shared one last look with each other.

"What am I supposed to do?" Yuzuka asked, allowing her shoulders to droop, feeling emotionally drained. 'What do you want me to do?' was what she had really meant to say.

"Just stand by Tatsunami for now. The answers you seek will come to you in time," Shirogane suggested and then made for the door.

* * *

Suzumiya Akane was never really one to use guns. By guns she meant infantry small arms like pistols or assault rifles, since she as an Eishi of the UN Army used Assault Cannons all the time with her TSF. Still, as a member of the A-01 Valkyries, Akane was very well versed in the use of infantry weapons even though she had never actually fired one in anger.

Hopefully Nastassja Latrova would not know that.

"Stop," Akane ordered in English, her sidearm pressed against the back of the smaller girl's head. "Turn around, slowly, or I will fire." With slow deliberate movements, Latrova turned around to face Akane.

When Akane had stumbled across Nastassja and Hibiki talking in the VTF-0(2) hangar, she knew she was already too late and Takamura's girl had beaten her to the punch. That of course left Akane in a bind, since she couldn't be sure how Tatsunami would react now that he had met her opposite number. If she showed up waving around her request to transfer him to the A-01's care, it was entirely possible she knew Tatsunami would believe her to be the threat. As far as Akane knew, he could already have been poisoned towards people looking to take him away from Project Valkyrie.

Akane really wasn't one for this secret service business. She was an Eishi first and foremost, and really had no clue what to do next now that her mission had taken such a drastic turn. Therefore, she reacted as any Eishi would when presented with a threat: confront it head on.

Akane had laid a textbook ambush in the Visiting Officers' Quarters and had now sprung the trap. She had this 'Nastassja Latrova' dead to rights, and she was going to get some answers.

"You do realize you are pointing a gun at a superior officer right, Second Lieutenant?" The younger officer replied calmly and raised both her arms to show she was unarmed.

"Scream, and I will fire."

"You have accosted an officer of the UN Army at gunpoint. If any MP sees this situation, I assure you that it will not end well for you, Second Lieutenant."

"If any MP shows up and investigates, I'm sure they'll be quite surprised to discover that Captain Nastassja Ivanova is listed among the Soviet's Army's honored dead." Akane resisted the urge to smirk when Ivanova flinched at her declaration.

Akane hadn't gone into this completely blind. She may not have been the sharpest knife in the drawer, but even Akane knew when to pick her fights. Akane had run a simple background check on the name the name on that Valkyrie, 'Captain N. Ivanova', hoping to turn up something that she could use to her advantage, she was quite surprised how quickly she'd found a hit.

"It's quite gutsy to use something so close your actual name, Captain, and using Latrova's name was an even bigger mistake," Akane stated haughtily. "You are officially KIA along with the rest of Zhar Battalion, and I know you and your 'benefactors' have as much to lose if those MPs start investigating this as much as I do. Now, your sidearm please."

"You are correct, Second Lieutenant," Ivanova acknowledged grudgingly. Ivanova cautiously handed her sidearm over to Akane, and the latter snatched it out of her fingers quickly to remove any possible chance of retaliation. "So? What exactly do you hope to achieve through this exercise?"

"What are you intentions towards Tatsunami Hibiki?"

"Interesting, I could ask you that very same thing," Ivanova tilted her head and began studying Akane with keen interest. "I wasn't aware there were any elements in the UN Army interested in a former Eishi cadet."

"Don't play coy with me, 'Captain'. I'm the one with the gun," Akane prodded Nastassja with the barrel to drive home her point. "Answer the question. What does Project Valkyrie want with Tatsumani Hibiki?"

"We want to recruit him. Someone of his unique talents should not be posted here. But I think you already knew that," Ivanova answered. "And Second Lieutenant? Check your safety. That is an amateur mistake you just made there."

Unable to stop herself, Akane quickly glanced down to her sidearm.

"Wait, no, it isn't-"

In a flash, Ivanova was upon her, taking advantage of Akane's lapse in judgment to suddenly strike out like a coiled python.

As a member of the A-01 Valkyries, Akane was well versed in hand to hand combat, but whoever had trained Nastassja must have been an expert at hand to hand combat because Akane didn't even stand a chance. Combined with the disorientation from having fallen for the oldest trick in the book, the next thing Akane knew she was pinned on the floor in an arm lock, her gun arm now twisted painfully into infectiveness.

"Now it is my turn to ask you, Shōi. Who are you, who do you work for, and why do you want Ensign Tatsunami?" Ivanova threatened, switching to fluent Japanese.

Akane cursed her own ineptitude and inexperience, unable to believe that the situation reversed itself so suddenly. Despite her small frame, Ivanova was strong and that submission hold was so perfect and effective that Akane felt like her arm was about to snap off any moment. Nevertheless, the redhead was determined not to speak.

"If you think I am going to talk-"

"Come now, Second Lieutenant. At least give me your name," Ivanova almost politely, then began to apply pressure to Akane's arm.

"Like hell you stupid Bi-ARRGH!" Pain shot though Akane's entire being as the snap echoed throughout the room. Ivanova had just broken her arm. Part of Akane couldn't believe that Ivanova had actually gone through with her threat. The other half was too busy howling in pain.

Before Akane could even begin to properly start cursing, she felt something strong wrapping itself around her fingers on her other hand.

"Your name please." Ivanova asked.

"FUCK YO-!"

Snap.

There went her left index finger, twisted back so far it broke. Akane was halfway into her next scream when a strong right hook to her face winded her completely. Through the haze of agony, Akane could bleakly felt two strong arms wrap themselves around her neck and press her cheek against the floor.

"I grow tired of this. Next, your neck," Ivanova whispered softly, almost gently, into Akane's ear. The words, ones that spoke of such a final solution, carried so much weight that it Akane could hear it through her agony. "My comrades may be limited by morals and ethics, but I am different. My own country left my entire unit to die at the hands of the BETA. There is nothing I won't do in the name of my mission or to protect those whom I call friends, Second Lieutenant. You name. _Please_."

"You-You broke my arm and my finger," Akane said in disbelief. This Nastassja Ivanova, a girl shorter than her who was probably younger than her, was ready to kill her in a heartbeat.

Akane couldn't believe this was happening to her.

"And next I will break your neck. You name, please," the harsh voice of reality whispered.

It was a simple matter of mindset.

Akane was an Eishi, a person who dedicated her entire being to the defense of humanity. Even as a member of a special forces unit, Akane was bound by that one constraint. Although she may have pointed a gun at Ivanova, there was no way Akane would have pulled that trigger in anger. She would have if her hand was forced, but violence against another human being was a last resort to her. Akane had been taught to kill BETA, and even though she had been trained to defend herself against human foes, pointing a gun at some faceless alien and at another human being were two vastly different things.

But Nastassja Ivanova? The self-proclaimed vengeful ghost of the 211st Zhar Battalion? A girl who saw the bodies of everyone and everything she ever loved burn to the ground while she alone survived? Her loved ones becoming a senseless sacrifice, caused by the greed of powerful uncaring men?

No, Nastassja Ivanova was something else entirely. For Ivanova the situation was simple. Unlike Akane who was analyzing the situation as it developed, for Nastassja this was rule number one of her profession.

There was a threat in her area of operation, and she was a fighter pilot.

Fighter pilots neutralized threats.

"For the last time, your name, if you please." And just like that, Akane felt her neck begin to twist-

"Suzumiya Akane," Akane croaked out desperately, feeling tears leak from in the corners of her eyes. In the face of death, she felt her training evaporate before her like a drop of water in the hot sun. "Damn you. My name is Suzumiya Akane."

"Better. Your unit and affiliation, please."

"Special Task Force A-01, 11th UN Army, based out of Yokohama Base."

"Never heard of it," Ivanova said, the pressure around her neck starting to build. Akane felt fear clench in her chest. "You are lying to me-"

"I'm not! I swear I'm not!" Akane croaked out, and much to her relief she felt the pressure begin to lessen. "We're a special task force meant to carry out high risk missions for the United Nations. Top secret! Our purpose is the defense of humanity! That's our mission! We're not the enemy!"

Thankfully, even with her back against the wall, one aspect of Akane's training still held true. Despite the fact she was starting death in the face, she refused to divulge the existence of Alternative IV to Ivanova. Even if she should die here, even if she'd compromised the existence of the Valkyries, she would never compromise mankind's last best hope to this psychopath!

"And your designs on Tatsunami?"

"We-we're trying to figure out what's going on with Project Valkyrie. We thought he might be the key," Akane wheezed in between her sobs. By now the pain was beginning to become almost unbearable, but she feared that if she stopped talking, Ivanova would kill her and be done with it. "We, we weren't going to hurt him. Just ask a few questions! Honest!"

Ivanova was silent for a few moments, clearly thinking. Then finally, after a few agonizingly long moments where Akane feared her life was at an end, the girl spoke. "Stay away from Tatsunami. He is none of your business . Do you understand?" Akane nodded her head all too eagerly, and then the pressure disappeared as Ivanova released her.

Akane scrambled away from Ivanova on what limbs she could move, coughing and spluttering all the while. Her right arm was broken and she cradled it close to her chest with her other arm, which had a broken index finger. Her face was beginning to swell from where she had been punched.

There was also the humiliation as well. She was supposed to be the interrogator, but in an instant Ivanova had turned the tables on her. She had been the one interrogated.

"Now, there is just one last thing."

Akanae looked up and went pale. Standing over Akane like the grim reaper itself, Ivanova was pointing her own gun at her, the cold brown eyes staring at her like those of an executioner.

This was it. Her life was over.

Dead at the hands of this monster that Takamura had under her employ without ever finding out truth. Killed with her own weapon. In one moment, Akane saw her entire life flash before her eyes. All the happy moments and the sad ones, mixed in with all her regrets. Faces of all the people she held precious to her came before her eyes. Her older sister, Haruka. Her friend and role model Hayse Mitsuki. Her seniors, Munakata Misae and Kazama Touko. Her Captain, Isumi Michiru. The Professor-

Suddenly Akane hit upon the biggest realization in her entire life.

For all her training, all her indoctrination and dedication to her cause, at her heart Akane was still a young girl who wanted so much more to life. She found she wanted to survive this war, and go away to find other things she had been denied; find love, start a family, even have children.

Find the life she had been denied because of this stupid war.

But she'd never have this chance.

There was still so much she had to do, so much she_ wanted _to do, and she was going to die here at the hands of another _human_.

"No-no, _please_-"

The magazine from the pistol hit the floor, and the sound of the round in the chamber being ejected was like a gift from heaven.

"I believe this is yours." Nastassja dropped the unloaded weapon back into Akane's good, well, better hand, then reached over to retrieve her own discarded weapon. "You should have done your homework better, Second Lieutenant Suzumiya. Do not threaten someone who has dropped off the grid. The CIA learned that the hard way. Do not make that same mistake."

Accepting the gun back gingerly, Akane shakily got back to her feet. The redhead was still trying her best to make sense of what just happened to her, and the close brush with death was not helping.

"Report to a medical officer. You fell down some stairs and that's how you injured yourself." Nastassja said. "Am I clear on this, Second Lieutenant? If I learn you have done otherwise, _I will find you_. You will not like it when I do."

"You-You're letting me go?"

"Correct, Second Lieutenant. Our differences aside, you are a fellow soldier of the UN. Your ineptitude at espionage tells me you aren't someone Project Valkyrie needs to fear. You are not my enemy. Not yet at least." Nastassja looked at Akane in the eye, her gaze sharp and deadly. "Stay away from Tatsunami."

Nodding obediently, Akane kept her eyes close to the ground as she limped out of the room, significantly chastened by the Captain. A failure to her mission she may be been, but at least she had escaped with her life. As she limped away with her tail between her legs, Akane was aware of two brown eyes watching her leave, never once wavering until Akane was well out of sight.

Threat neutralized.

* * *

Hibiki and Yuzuka were once again in their usual places after the end of the day. Hibiki was back inside the Fubiki's cockpit module, typing away on his computer, while Yuzuka was standing off to the side as he worked. The difference between now and the previous days was that neither of them was in the mood for talking, the events of the day weighing heavily on both their minds.

For Hibiki, today was the first day he'd received concrete proof that his 'delusion' was not a fantasy. He'd met someone who claimed to know his comrades and had actually been in the presence of the first real Valkyrie he'd seen since he'd come here. On one hand he was so happy he would have been bouncing off the walls. Yet months of being stranded here, alone, made him suspect this was too good to be true, and doubt and uncertainly clouded his mind.

For Yuzuka, she had very much the same problem. Her mind was clouded with questions. The offer between the VTF training and the mystery surrounding her new friend was a vexing one, one that Yuzuka couldn't turn away from.

Finally it was Yuzuka who spoke up. "I got an offer today, from an IRG Colonel."

"An offer?"

"They want me to go to Dover after graduation," Yuzuka said, anxious to see how Hibiki would react to this news. "Project Valkyrie has developed some kind of new weapon there, and the Japanese High Command is offering me the chance to be among the first to learn how to fly it."

The sound of Hibiki's fingers tapping stopped, and the boy turned to face Yuzuka with a measured gaze. "They want you to learn how to pilot a Valkyrie." He stated, already knowing the answer.

Yuzuka nodded, wondering how he'd managed to guess.

"I received the offer just this afternoon from one of the IRG Colonels. She, she seemed to know about you and your friends," Yuzuka closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around herself the feeling of fear and the feeling of clod settling into her bones. "Hibiki, I'm scared. I don't know what's going on anymore."

"I wish I could tell you otherwise, Yuzuka, but I'm just as confused about this as you are. Something is happening, and it's bigger than both of us." Hibiki cupped his hands on his mouth in thought, clearly thinking deeply about what was happening around them. "Just today I made contact with someone sent by my commanding officer, Lieutenant Yuuya Bridges. This can't just be a coincidence."

"You just met one of your people?"

"Not one of my people. Just someone claiming to have been sent by one of my people. She gave me this." Hibiki took out a small device from inside his coveralls. "Long range planetary communicator. They're going to call me soon. I came up here because I sweep this place for bugs every other day as part of my regular duties. The IJA are paranoid bastards."

Once again Yuzuka was struck at how openly Hibiki was sharing this information with her. "You're trusting me with this?"

"Well, you're the first person around here who's been completely straight with me," Hibiki admitted, setting the communicator down on the cockpit armrest between the two of them. "Maybe it's just Stockholm Syndrome talking, but right now you're the only friend I've got." A morbid smile graced his features. "And from this looks of things, I'm right on that count."

"_You're probably the only person he trusts right now."_

Colonel Shirogane's words came back to Yuzuka then. It was then that she understood just why the enigmatic officer had taken so much interest in her.

So this was what being helpless felt like.

"So, what do you think we should do?" Yuzuka said, suddenly feeling like she was the biggest tool out there in the universe, a pawn in someone else's game that could only blunder her way through the murky waters at someone else's whims.

"I don't know, Yuzuka. But this little communicator is the only lead I've got right now. All we can do is wait and hope for the best." Hibiki said poking the device with a finger.

Yuzuka fell silent, wondering just how her life had fallen to such insanity as they waited for the call to come. Just two days ago, it was just her and her training. Humans versus the BETA. But now, everything was different. The war, once so simple and straightforward, now had taken on a whole new dimension that Yuzuka couldn't even picture in her mind.

But as scared as she was, Yuzuka couldn't help but admit there was a part of her that was earnestly excited. This was something new, something beyond everything she had known. Like Alice going down the proverbial rabbit hole, Yuzuka wanted to chase this mystery to the very end, no matter where that end might be.

"So who was this Colonel person who you said knew about me?" Hibiki asked.

"Shirogane Hikaru, the Shogun's personal bodyguard." Yuzuka answered without a moment's hesitation.

"Oh. Crap, that's pretty high up," Hibiki muttered worryingly. Yuzuka couldn't help but giggle at her friend's enormous understatement of the situation. Thankfully it was then the little communicator started to beep.

Yuzuka and Hibiki shared a look, their determined faces unanimously agreeing it was time to get some answers. Carefully flipping the communicator open, Hibiki pressed it to his ear.

"Tatsunami speaking."

"Hey Blaze! Why the last name basis? Don't tell me them Japs have made you all stiff and uppity in all but seven months?"

"Friday." Hibiki couldn't help but feel the warm smile grace his face at the sound of an all too familiar voice, and gave a quick thumbs up to Yuzuka to show things were all right. "It's glad to hear you're safe Ilfriede."

"Right back at'cha kiddo. So, what's this I hear about you actually being fifteen? Because you know, our ages of the rest of us matched up pretty well when we came here, so the same thing probably went for you as well. In case you've forgotten, minimum age of enlistment is sixteen with SMS. Company policy and all that." Ilfriede's smugness was so thick Hibiki could swear it was oozing out of the phone receiver.

"Oh, shit." He'd known there was always a possibility of his erroneous date of birth on his enlistment papers coming to light, but Hibiki had never expected his secret to come out like this. Well at least this proved beyond a doubt he was indeed speaking to Lieutenant Junior Grade Ilfriede von Feulner.

"So what do you have to say for yourself, young man?"

"Uh, better to ask for forgiveness?" Hibiki replied, knowing full well how absolutely screwed he was. Yuuya was not going to be pleased about how Hibiki had effectively done a dance on the age of majority laws, that's for sure.

"Oh man, Cipher's going to kill you!" Ilfriede laughed heartily. "Listen buddy, I'm going to be popping over to Japan to drop off your bird. Can you believe we managed to get the slave remote control working? Ah, anyway, expect me in town."

To say that Hibiki's heart was clutched by the cold grip of terror would be a gross understatement. The words 'walking disaster zone' didn't even describe the full extent of what would happen if Illfriede decided to come to Japan.

"Uh, no! Bad idea, bad idea, bad idea! Abort, abort, abort!" Hibiki shook his head desperately. Beside him, Yuzuka, unable to listen in, looked on in growing concern. He couldn't blame her. Lieutenant Junior Grade Ilfriede von Fuelner, callsign Friday, had gotten that moniker not because of a pun or mispronunciation of her name, but because the chaos she brought in her wake was akin to that of an uncontrolled Friday night bash.

She was coming to Japan, the country of ancient tradition, ironclad rules and rigid discipline.

This was not going to end well.

Probably with something on fire by the time they were done.

"Well this is sort of a chore I have to do." Ilfriede laughed happily. "Y'see I got kinda carried away the other day with my new bird and all, so I buzzed Dover Base just for kicks. I got away with it since everyone was feeling guilty about sticking my ass in a mental hospital for five months or so, but they gotta punish me with something right?"

"You… buzzed the tower?"

"Me, buzz the tower? Please, Blaze. Just who the hell do you think I am? I buzzed the whole freaking base! How's that for a record?" Illfirede's delighted declaration could be heard by Yuzuka over the phone's speaker, despite it being pressed against Hibiki's ear.

Hibiki turned to face Yuzuka with a look of abject terror on his face.

He could already see all of Atsugi base burning around him, the facers of dozens upon dozens of angry Japanese officers baying for blood while that manic skipped off to wherever she came from, leaving him to clean up her mess. It would just be like the time they had attended the Annual Macross Airshow on Macross Seven, except this time it would be angry ultranationalist Japanese warriors out for blood and not outranged Basara Nekki fangirls.

Hibiki couldn't decide what was worse, the Japs or the fangirls, but he didn't want to find out firsthand.

"Friday, listen to me. This is of the upmost importance. You must take this communicator and put me on to someone with common sense, _right now_-"

"Nope! I'll be seeing you tomorrow whether you like it or not! Oh, and I should tell you about this awful-I mean, awesome… stuff I discovered here in England called _Haggis_! The Japs apparently love this stuff, so me and the rest of Cerberus Battalion think it's a great idea that we should dump all this shit-I mean, _awesome stuff _with them in Atsugi in exchange for something edible, like… like cup ramen!" Illfirede said, her motor mouth overriding anything Hibiki might have been able to say in protest. "I'll bring lots when I come over, so be prepared to arrange the trade! Auf Wiedersehen, Blaze!"

"But this place doesn't even _have_ cup ramen!"

It was useless. Friday had hung up.

Hibiki stared blankly at nothing for a short moment, his mind thinking about how he was going to survive the impending disaster that was now upon him. Slowly he turned to face Yuzuka ,who was looking at him with confusion and concern written all over her face.

"So how did it go?" She asked.

"Could have gone better," Hibiki pretty much summed up the entire situation in those four words. Well, it definitely could have finished without Friday flying over to share her special brand of insanity, but all things considered it would be good to see a familiar face. "That was Ilfriede von Fuelner, the element lead of my flight. She's coming down here to drop off a Valkyrie for me. Or at least, something approximating a Valkyrie."

"I see." Yuzuka said. "So, what are you planning on doing once she's flown over here?"

"What do you mean, Yuzuka?"

"Are you going to fly back to Dover with her?"

Hibiki opened his mouth to respond when he suddenly realized something. For all his focus on the revelation that he wasn't crazy anymore, it suddenly occurred to him that he had no idea what his next move was going to be. On one hand, he could just hop on the next flight to Dover, irrespective of the consequences. On the other hand, there was still a war going on, and just taking off would be incredibly irresponsible, even if he had no true loyalty to this nation or this cause.

Suddenly he was aware he had a monumental choice to make ahead of him, and he hadn't really given much thought to it at all.

"I don't know, Yuzuka." Hibiki replied uncertainly. "I don't know."

Hibiki and Yuzuka sat together once again in silence, both aware that tomorrow would bring a whole bunch of questions neither of them were quite ready to face.

* * *

Suzumiya Akane sat on the side of her bed, one arm in a sling and her other hand bandaged up as she held the phone against her ear. On the other end of the phone line, Captain Isumi was uncharacteristically silent. Akane had just told Isumi that Takamru's agent had been a trigger pull away from ending her life, so it was natural that the Captain had to think about what a disaster the assignment had become.

As it stood, the mission was a catastrophic failure. Not only had she failed to make contact with the primary, but Akane had alerted Takamra's agent to her presence and had only just narrowly escaped with her own life. As failed operations went, this was one for the record books.

"Return to Yokohama," Isumi finally said.

"I'm sorry, Captain," Akane replied, fighting back the urge to cry. This was the most important assignment of her entire career and she completely blew it. "I'm so sorry."

"It's not your fault. I should have sent someone else," Captain Isumi said wearily, more tired than Akane had ever heard her before.

"I'm very sorry."

"Suzumiya, stop," Isumi cut in. The woman sounded absolutely exhausted, but even then she was still thinking for her subordinates. "Look, this was a mistake on my part. I did not expect for there to be another agent and underestimated Takamura's callousness. I'm just thankful you're alright. I did not realise that Takaura had a cold blooded killer like that under her employ."

Akane felt so angry and humiliated. After everything that just happened, once the terror and the fear pain had finally left, all Akane could feel was shame. Her pride and confidence had been ripped apart, and now all she could do was return to Yokohama in disgrace. It would have been better if Isumi would at least admonish her for taking action on her own, as it stood the Captain didn't blame her one bit.

Nastassja Ivanova was a special kind of monster, and they both knew that. It would take someone equally ruthless to go up against that kind of person and live, and that someone was not an honorable member of the A-01 Valkyries.

That fact did nothing to ease her conscience, and Akane simply felt responsible for this debacle even more because of it.

"I understand, ma'am, but w-what about the mission? We-We still need Tatsunami," Akane said, unable to stop herself from sniffling.

"Akane. Forget Tatsunami. Listen, what happened was not your fault," Isumi's voice was comforting and almost maternal in its tone. "I'll figure out a way to get at Takamura and her dog. You say Ivanova's officially KIA in the Soviet Army, right? Perhaps we can use that to our advantage."

"But Tatsunami…"

"I'm afraid he's now beyond our reach. We'll have to… we'll have to think of something else."

"Captain?" Akane said, unable to believe her ears. Captain Isumi's uncertainty was well hidden, but even Akane could tell that her superior officer was nearing the end of her rope. It was a sure sign that things couldn't possibly be going well for the Valkyries back home in Yokohama.

"We'll think of something." Isumi said, almost a whisper, before seemingly gathering herself. "Look, just get back here tomorrow. We could really use you here now that that avenue is closed."

"Are things really that bad there?" Akane said, her mind reorienting itself using the soft, almost inaudible tremor in Isumi's voice as a focus.

"No. Yes. No," Isumi said, then gave a weary sigh. "Don't worry about it. Just, don't worry about it, Akane. Just, just get back here and stay safe. This is an order, do you understand?"

"I understand, Captain. I understand all too well." Akane said her goodbyes than hung up. She understood too well. Whatever was happening back at Yokohama, it could not possibly be good. Akane hung up, feeling something kindle in her heart once more. How foolish she was.

* * *

"_Achieve your mission with all your might."_

* * *

While she was feeling sorry for herself after receiving such a scare, her comrades in the A-01 were fighting tooth and nail to keep Alternative IV afloat. Their enemies, compared to hers, were far more dangerous. Her mission had been simple. Find one boy and bring him back to Yokohama. Somehow she'd allowed some punk kid from Russia who wasn't even her age to get the best of her.

Pathetic. How dare she call herself one of the Valkyries if she left things as they were?

* * *

"_Despair not till your last breath."_

* * *

Wiping away her tears, Akane got back to her feet and walked across the full length mirror in her room, the one normally used by officers to check the state of their dressing. The girl who looked back at her in the refection was in a sorry state, with an arm in a sling and the other hand in a cast, some gauze over her cheek where a bruise was starting to form.

But she wasn't crying. Not anymore. Two resolute eyes stated back at her from the mirror, and Akane knew what had to be done, orders be damned.

* * *

"_Make your death count."_

* * *

She wouldn't be going back to Yokohama. Not without something to show for it.

Akane was a Valkyrie.

She would see her mission done, or die trying.

* * *

Ensign Lilia Kjellburg had seen many strange things in her life, but this ranked somewhere in the top 10 of all of the weirdest things she had ever witnessed with her own two eyes.

"You're stuffing a Valkyire with _Haggis_," Lila said. "Friday... What. The. Hell."

Ilfriede von Feulner gleefully nodded, as she continued the laborious process of putting sealed, airtight plastic containers filled with the aforementioned culinary dish in every possible nook and cranny of a VTF-0(2) Proto Valkyire. Friday wasn't alone in her nefarious plot. With her were Lunateresia von Witzleben, Helgarose von Falkenmayer and Wolfgang von Brauer, the three members of Cerberus she was closest to. Together the foursome were doing their level best to fill three weeks' worth of Haggis into a single Valkyrie.

"We're going to trade this with something edible!" Ilfriede cackled, reaching around inside the cockpit to put more packages under the copilot seat. "I don't care if I came back with nothing but plain old onigiri or cup ramen, anything has got to be better than this crime against food. Right, everyone?"

"Right! Besides, Japanese people love Haggis! We should give them some!" Luna chirped.

"Japanese food is the best." Helga nodded her head sagely.

"Better them than us!" Wolfgang said, at least being honest about his motives.

In response, Lilia ran a hand down her face.

When she'd been on the run from the CIA, things had made sense. It was pretty much a textbook SERE exercise. Lilia had been chased across three continents, but it had been not all that bad. Getting to see all the sights and sounds the world had to offer had actually been an eye opening experience for her. Even when she'd accidently implicated Melvina and had to drag the Aussie girl all the way to Dover with her, things hadn't been all that bad.

Then Lillia arrived in Dover Base and met the craziest bunch of maniacs she'd ever met.

"I don't know why you people need a loony bin, since the whole lot of you are insane," Lilia sighed. Off the top of her head, she could already think of dozens of ways Ilfriede's harebrained plot would fall flat on its face. "You do realize if any of those containers rupture, the smell will never come out right?"

Ilfirede grinned evilly. "Why do you think we're putting all this crap in Blaze's Valkyrie and not mine?"

Lilia stared at her friend in shock, for there wasn't a single shred of guilt on Ilfriede's face. In fact, Ilfirede looked positively proud about it. Then the ex-NUNS Marine spun on her heel and marched away from the scene as fast as she could without breaking into an all-out run.

"To hell with you Germans!" Lilia swore. "I'm going over to the Argos Flight offices where the people are actually sane!"

* * *

Authors Afterword:

I know this one is a 'little' late, but hopefully it was well worth the wait.

Akane getting brutalized by Nastassja was a bit of a risk I took, but I wanted to portray the difference between a young idealistic TSF pilot whose primary focus is fighting the BETA, and someone who's been jaded by the treacherous world of Muv Luv espionage and has lost her entire surrogate family because her superiors were jerks. Don't worry, Akane fans! She's going to make her comeback eventually.

Also, uh… totally unintended, but when I actually started writing up the Cerberus Battalion, I discovered that I had unwittingly done something stupid with the EU front. Let's see…

An ancient castle playing host to some of the most talented, if eccentric, pilots on the British Isles, which acts as the first line of defense in protecting Europe's last outpost against an unstoppable alien menace who also happen to have bases on Mars… Who just recently inducted a mad-as-a-hatter, devil-may-care fighter pilot into their number. One that enjoys bouncing people without warning, wearing aviator shades, is associated with a mythical being and possesses some truly improbable flying skills. Said pilot eventually 'encourages' the rest of the castle be 'explore their inner child' while also dealing with PTSD from adolescent teenage soldiers who were forced into a war they shouldn't be fighting.

Gee, I wonder where I've seen all this before *cough*SWQ*cough*?

Anyway, thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this installment of Muv Luv: DYRL. See you!


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